Ritten in Blood
by SpookOrSpectre
Summary: A string of vandalisms leaves Nick and Judy with a bad taste in their mouth. The list of impossibilities goes on and on in every case, and paint does not seem to be on the artist's palette. The two are in a race against time to stop the culprit before more are sacrificed to create grotesque "artwork."
1. Omni Auro Cariorem

**A/N: I have returned! It's been a while, I've been busy with school and with the Halloween special, but this popped into my head and I just had to write it. It might update kinda slowly, but it'll get done. I do not believe in unfinished stories. This takes place after the events of "The Deerbrooke Devil."**

**This story is part of the Enigma series, the order of which is listed on my profile, though you won't necessarily have to read the previous stories to read this.**

**Please _enjoy!_**

* * *

The two were still confused about the directions they had just been given. That is, they had no idea why Clawhauser was giving them the directions to a nearby shopping mall. He had made what was apparently a pun, which he laughed at but failed to explain, and told them to "just go there." Now they were on the way to this mall, unsure what the mall security couldn't handle that they could.

"Maybe it's someone really small and slippery, and the… uhhh… family-sized mall cops can't quite get 'em?" Nick suggested. Judy shook her head.

"Slick, has anyone ever told you to shut your yap?" Judy retorted, finding his comment minorly amusing but majorly offensive.

He smirked.

_Of course he smirked,_ Judy thought.

"Clawhauser thought that it was funny, whatever it is," Nick said.

"Seemed like it. Maybe it's a naturalist."

"I'll let you have the tackling duties."

"Pfft, I will be tranquilizing anyone that tries to make their privates publics," she replied. She pulled the cruiser to the side of the street in front of the mall, and it became immediately clear why the police were needed; a mammal - a gray fox to be exact - was taunting the mall officers while staying outside of the mall's entrance, where they had no jurisdiction.

"You think we should just give him a warning?" Nick offered, figuring the fox couldn't possibly be up to anything more than simply being an imbecile.

"Yeah, probably," Judy agreed. They stepped out of the cruiser and were met with an odd statement that sent their brains grinding to a halt.

"Yeah call the cops! Tell them to send Nick and Judy! I'm not go- Oh my god! It's them! My heroes!" He shouted, running towards the two. They reflexively drew their tranq guns, not exactly comfortable with a suspect running straight at them.

"Stop right there! Don't move an inch!" Judy yelled. The fox flung his paws into the air and recoiled, fear immediately struck into him.

"Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean-!"

"Get on the ground and put your paws on the back of your head!" Nick shouted. Their plans had changed rapidly; they didn't know what this young mammal was up to and they didn't want to take a risk to find out. The fox whimpered and did as he was asked. The two walked over to him, Nick keeping his tranq trained while Judy paw cuffed him. She stood him up and the two walked him over to the cruiser.

"Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening! You two are awesome! Sorry if I spooked you, I-"

"You have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law-" Nick started reading him his Miranda rights, winking at Judy. Now they knew what was going on, and they could both tell this was someone they would just need to scare a little, not punish. A trip to the precinct and an hour or so in a cell should do the trick.

The young fox's ears fell flat against his head as Nick continued with his rights, realizing that he was in deeper than he had intended. He was silent while Nick sat him down in the back seat, closing the door for the stunned fox. The two got back into their front seats and pretended to get "back to work as usual," ignoring the fox completely. Judy pretended to radio something back to the precinct, a random made-up code that was totally meaningless but intimidating nonetheless.

"I'm really sorry guys," the young male said.

They didn't respond.

"I just… I kinda don't have anyone right now and… you guys are like the only mammals I look up to…" he said. He let out a labored sigh and Nick started realizing where they had gone wrong. Judy flashed him a look of concern.

"It'll be ok, kid. I was in the same place a while ago, it's no fun…" Nick said.

"Sorry for throwing you in the car like that, we just didn't know what you were doing…"

"It's ok, I understand. I wasn't thinking," he said. The three shared an awkward silence as the car drove, the officers not sure what to do now that they had him in the back.

"So, you said you look up to us… you wanna be a cop?" Judy asked.

"Yeah, I'm hopeful anyway."

"How about we take you with us today, see what it's like? You'll get to ride up here instead of back there," She offered with a smile.

"No way! Really?" He said, excited.

"Sure, why not?" Nick said. Judy pulled the cruiser over, Nick getting out to get the fox out of his cuffs and in between the two in the front seat. He marveled at the control panel and radio and looked to the two he was sitting between. He was slightly shorter than Nick but not by much.

"So what's your name?"

"Rodger, my friends call me Rodge," he said.

"What if I call you Rusty?" Nick asked.

"Ha! I've heard that you like nicknames… but why Rusty?" He asked.

"Your fur reminds me of old, rusty ironwork, red and gray," Nick said.

"Huh… you know what, I'm ok with that," Rodger said. "So what's on the docket for today?"

"Well, we were just on patrol, so, not much actually," Judy said. He nodded with a silent 'oh' on his lips. The radio suddenly crackled to life, Clawhauser's voice coming through.

"We've got a report of vandalism on fiftieth and dune, non-emergency but squad car requested," the bubbly voice said.

"WHopps on it," Nick said into the radio.

"Looks like we have something to do," Judy said as she changed course for the location Clawhauser sent to them. It was a gas station and convenience store, and it was in a seedier part of town. It didn't take very long to reach it, and when they arrived they found a fairly new though also rather disheveled establishment. A hippo left the building and started walking up to the officers as they stepped out of their cruiser.

"Hi officers, I hope this won't end up being a waste of your time, I know you don't normally respond to vandalism, but somebody really did a number on my shop," he said.

"No problem, it's what we're here for. Do you mind if our friend Rodger joins us?" Judy asked.

"Not at all. You lookin to be an officer Rodger?" The hippo asked politely, leading the three to the left side of his shop.

"Hopefully, but you know how it is," Rodger replied.

"Yeah. It's hard for foxes but you've got a good role model right next to you," he said. Rodger looked at Nick and quickly received an ear ruffle from the larger fox. They rounded the corner and immediately saw what had the hippo so concerned. Painted with incredible detail was a portrait of a calm grassy field, distant mountains framed by clouds and forests. It was beautiful, but it was done entirely in a deep red paint, a stark and unnerving contrast against the white-coated cinder block wall.

"Woah…" Judy said.

"That is not your typical graffiti," Rodger said.

"You've got a good eye, kid," Nick said, almost jokingly. _You'd have to be blind to think this was normal,_ he thought. The young fox walked up to the mural and inspected it closely. The two officers just stood back and took in the masterpiece. It was below eye level for them despite being roughly two feet high, and it was probably five feet long.

"Must have been done by someone pretty short," Judy said.

"Yeah, very," Nick agreed.

"They did it with a brush too," Rodger concluded after his brief inspection, noting tiny lines on the surface of the paint. The officers barely even processed what he had said. There was no way this was done with a brush, they would have been caught.

"Any ideas? I've never seen something like this but it's not my job to look at graffiti…"

"I don't think we've seen anything like this either. Do you have any security cameras?" Nick asked. Rodger returned to the group.

"Sure, we can check the feeds in the back, but only the front-facing camera is any good at night," the store manager said as he led the three inside, bringing them to the stock room where a computer was showing the current security camera feeds. The hippo sat down and clicked on the folder that held recent videos. The north camera footage from last night was almost pitch black, and the three had no hope for it being useful. Judy sighed, and just as she did a car passed by, its headlight illuminating the wall.

"Try to find the next time a car passes by," she said. He fast-forwarded the video, and the next car passed roughly half an hour later. There was still nothing on the wall, so he kept going. After a few more, he started skipping hours at a time, finally finding a shot of the mural.

"There it is… now when did they make it…" the hippo said. He rewound the footage until they couldn't see it, and then he went forward again. Shortly after the flash with no mural a car passed, shedding light on a freshly painted mural.

"What time were those two shots taken?" Nick asked.

"Three-o-four A.M. and… three-eleven A.M… seven minutes," the hippo said, trailing off in disbelief.

"No way…" Rodger said. "There's no way someone painted that with a brush in seven minutes," he said. Nick left the stockroom and walked outside, back to the wall with the mural, Judy following close behind. He got close to the picture and noticed the same line pattern, like brush strokes, in the paint, but something was off about it. He scratched at it with his claw, and a crusted over outer layer flaked off to reveal a mushy inside, but it was all held together with small strands.

The smell reached his nose and he recoiled, gagging. He held back vomit, and Judy put a paw on his shoulder.

"Nick what?-"

"It's blood… it's fur, and blood, Judy."


	2. Pares Morimur

**A/N: Chapter two! I'm liking the way I'm writing this story. I've got a pretty clear view of where I want it to go but no clear path to take it there, so I'm allowed more creative freedom here than I gave myself for my last stories _Peril _and _The Deerbrook Devil. _Looks like people are enjoying it so far! Thank you for all the follows, faves, and reviews, it truly means a lot.**

**P.S. For those of you who enjoy the Enigma Project series and are artistically inclined, I'd love to have some artwork of Tanya and James (who, ironically, probably won't be featuring much here). I'd ask a random someone to do a commission, but I'd rather pay someone who is going to understand who the characters are and is going to put their heart and soul into drawing some characters that they like. PM me if you're interested!**

**Anyways, _enjoy!_**

* * *

The rabbit sat at her desk, nervous for the news she was awaiting. Nick understood fully and was perhaps even more anxious himself, but he couldn't help but feel like the results would be worth nothing to them. More analysis of the footage revealed nothing, and currently, the case was cold. Someone had killed a mammal, ground them into a pulp, then painted a fresco with their remains, and so far there was no chance of them getting caught. To add to it, they didn't even know who the victim was, not in the slightest, not until the test results came back.

"You think Rodger is gonna be ok?" Judy asked, figuring the fox might know a fox better.

"I don't know… I mean, remember when we saw our first body in that alley? We got over it pretty quick…"

"Yeah, but it wasn't… it wasn't like this," Judy said. Seeing what was left of a mammal plastered to a wall was a fairly horrific sight. Even though the two had arguably seen far worse, it was no less shocking. It was hard to get acquainted with mammalian mortality, especially when the end result was so unfamiliar. A mammal, a living, breathing thing, full of vibrancy, exuding the delicate complexity of life, but unwhole; reduced to its worthless and ugly constituents.

_We are all dust, and to dust we all shall turn._

A hyena then walked in front of their cubicle, knocking politely despite the fact the two could clearly see her.

"We've got the forensics result from that mural, it was a rat, Female, age seventeen. She went missing yesterday, was seen leaving school but never made it home. Her parents reported it to precinct twelve in little Rodentia at five-o-two PM last night," Vivian said, the hyena entering the two's cubicle to give the report to Judy. She opened it and flipped to the first page, sneering in disgust at the first line she read.

"Traces of organ tissue and bones? This creep literally ground her up?" She asked.

"Seems like it," Vivian said.

"No wonder it smelled so bad… I figured it was just the heat and time," Nick said.

"Any evidence for another mammal?" Judy asked.

"No, not yet at least. We're doing a few more DNA tests just to see if we can catch a bit of someone else but right now it's just Aubrey," Vivian said.

"Aubrey… poor girl," Judy said. Nick looked solemnly at the carpet.

"You guys don't have any leads?" Vivian asked.

"No, and I don't know if you heard, but somebody painted that thing in 7 minutes, and they might have even used a brush," Judy said.

"Maybe look for an artist?" Vivian wondered aloud.

"Might not be a bad idea… are there any art schools nearby?" Judy asked.

"There's St. Wolfgang's, it's only a few blocks away," Nick said.

"That's where I went," Vivian said, leaving the other two confused. "Before I went into CSI and forensics, that is," she added.

"Huh, didn't know you were an artist, Spots," Nick said.

"Well, barely… hopefully that'll lead you somewhere though," she said.

"Yeah, at least we've got something to do, thanks Viv," Judy said, the hyena nodding politely before heading back to the lab. The rabbit stood up, waving the fox on to go to the cruiser. Nick stood up and came with, soon finding himself in the car with her, heading to a school a few blocks away.

"You think this might be an enigma?" Nick asked.

"I've kinda had the feeling but you never know, and we gotta start somewhere either way. Do you think we should let Tanya and James know just in case?" She said.

"Yeah. I'll text Tanya right now, fill her in on some of the details," Nick said. Before he was done typing the car was stopped, a large and rather interesting building to the right of him. Black beams wove a spiderweb of steel, glass held between the strands in an intricate and erratic structure. Balconies and staircases inside were busy with mammals of all shapes and sizes. The two left the cruiser and approached the doors, looking for a desk or office of some kind to no avail.

"Excuse me," Judy said to a passing skunk, hoping to catch her attention.

"Huh? Oh! What uh, what can I do for you, officers?" She said, slightly flustered but ready for anything.

"We were just looking for an administrative office or something," Judy said.

"Oh! Sure, it's on the third floor at that end of the building," she said, pointing to the east side of the building.

"Great, thanks!" Judy said, Nick nodding to the skunk. She smiled and waved as she walked away and the two made their way to a grand spiral staircase, multiple sizes of steps for different sized mammals laid out on it. Judy hopped up the large steps while Nick trailed behind on the steps appropriate for his size. Judy stood triumphantly atop while Nick rushed his way to her, and she gave him no chance to catch his breath after he made it to the top. She started walking down the hall, the painting fox walking next to her.

They found themselves in a small lounge with a receptionist desk and what were apparently office spaces behind. The puma behind the desk gave them a slightly stunned look.

"Oh! Hello officers… what can I do for you?" She asked.

"We were just wondering if we could talk to an administrator about a recent vandalism incident," Nick said.

"Oh! Sure. Anyone in particular?" She asked.

"Just someone familiar with the faculty and departments," Judy said.

"Sure. I'll see if an academic counselor is available," she said, standing from the desk and walking back to the office space. A few seconds later she returned to lead them to an office lit dimly by warm white light, like a sunset. It had a small fern in the corner and a peaceful atmosphere, with a smiling antelope rising from behind a desk, walking around to greet them.

"Hi, how can I help you two?" He asked politely, pulling out chairs for them and inviting them to sit.

"Well, we had a very disturbing vandalism incident yesterday, and we wanted to find someone who could tell us something about who might have done it," Nick said, climbing up onto his chair. Judy hopped up onto hers.

"Well, that's too bad. Do you have a picture I can look at? I might be able to guide you to a professor with expertise in the area."

"Sure, but I will warn you, the graffiti was drawn in blood," Judy said.

"Now I understand why you're here… let me see, blood won't bother me much," he said. Judy took out her phone and handed it to him, the antelope putting on his glasses to see the small screen.

"Oh my… now I really understand why you're here. That's, well frankly I'd call it incredible if it weren't so disturbing… why don't you talk to Professor Clawklear, he should be able to help," he said, hoofing the phone back to her. "He's on the second floor, his office should be two-fifteen."

"Great, thank you!" Judy said. Nick waved and followed Judy as she made a quick exit. They fumbled their way down the stairs and walked quickly to the office they needed, finding an old lion reading a book at his desk. Judy knocked on the door and cleared her throat, the lion replying with a small hum or grunt of some kind, needing a moment to finish what he was reading. He set the book down and took off his glasses, smiling when he looked at the two.

"I see I've finally been caught for the gambling scheme I've been running, I guess you're here to take me away," he said jokingly.

"No Professor, we're here because we need your expertise," Judy said with a smile, appreciative of his lighthearted demeanor.

"Oh, well that's odd… what in the world could you possibly need me for? I'm no good with police work… I'll give it a try but don't expect any miracles," He said.

"Well, Doctor Clawklear, we've got a case of murder, someone used the remains of a mammal to paint a mural on the side of a gas station. We were wondering if you'd be able to tell us anything about the artist by looking at their work," Nick said. The lion frowned.

"That's terrible… let me see, I hope I'll be able to help," He said. Judy pawed him her phone and he took it, putting his reading glasses back on to inspect it. "My god… if I didn't know any better I'd say John Catstable, but he's been dead for almost two hundred years… I can't say I know anyone who can paint like this… sorry officers," he said solemnly.

"Oh… well, thank you for your time," Judy said, taking her phone back. The lion nodded slowly, upset that he was of no use when a mammal was dead.

"Don't let it bother you, prof, at the end of the say it's our job, not yours," Nick said.

"Of course… I just wish I could be more help," he said.

"That's quite alright Doctor Clawklear," Judy said. "Have a nice day."

"You too, and good luck with that case," the old lion said as the two left.

"Well that was an adventure," Nick said.

"Yeah, back to square one I guess," Judy agreed. They slowly descended the staircase and found a familiar face at the bottom. Rodger, the gray fox they had taken for a ride yesterday, was talking to the skunk that had directed them to the offices earlier. They walked up to say hello but were met with a more concerned look than they had anticipated.

"Woah, you ok Rusty?" Nick said as the fox turned to them with anxiety written all over him.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm ok… I just, Heather here told me she ran into you two and I just had to come find you, there's another vandalism, it's only a few blocks away from my house. It looks like blood again…"


	3. Iustitiam Quarem

**A/N: This is the longest chapter I've written in a while! I'm gettin back into it. Peril and TDD were just a little too robotic, writing-wise. I think they turned out well, but they weren't a ton of fun or very challenging to write, and I'm excited about this story since it is challenging me. I have an idea of where this story is going, but no map to get there! Exciting times.**

**Anyhow, ****_enjoy!_**

* * *

"Oh my gosh, that is like my favorite drink!" She said in an attempt to flirt. The conversation had been going for a few volleys and they still hadn't reached any interesting topics. This was primarily due to the flirter, though she would never admit this. Taylor was a simple rat; she liked boys, and she would do whatever she could to get them.

"Never took you for a Yakermeiseter kinda girl," the flirtee said to Taylor. He wasn't interested in her, but still hadn't made his final judgment, and he needed something to say. He knew her as a typical party girl with a bad reputation for being a haughty harlot.

"Ha! Yeah, I get pretty crazy, I'll drink anything you put in front of me," she laughed. He smiled, unsure how to respond. He was one of the coolest rats in school, and she'd had her eyes on him for a while. Unbeknownst to her, but blatantly apparent to him, she was trying far too hard. His friend then walked over and distracted him, much to his relief. Taylor huffed and turned away from him, walking over to her friend, who was chatting with another rat.

"That asshole is just ignoring me," she lied.

"I've heard he's gay anyway," Kate replied sharply, a total lie that she had spread after the same rat rejected her. It wasn't completely unwarranted, as rumor had it that he had turned her down due to her weight and figure.

"Not to mention what Aubrey said about his dick," the other girl, Amy, said. Aubrey had been with nearly every male in school. In fact, at the very moment, she was out with some new boy toy that she would likely soon discard. That was the assumption anyway, with little else to explain why she wouldn't be at the party.

"Yeah but she's a freak, I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her," Kate said, not one to agree with the exposition of private information. She had still laughed when Aubrey started talking about it, especially the various gestures.

"That doesn't mean much considering how far you could probably throw that stick figure," Taylor said.

"Yeah, that girl needs to eat something every once in a while," Amy said.

"And not throw it up right after," Kate said. They shared a laugh, deep down jealous of the other rat's figure. The three assumed it was the reason she could pick up guys so easily.

"So you two had any luck?" Taylor asked the other two. They were all single at the moment.

"No," they both replied.

"You wanna just leave?"

"Yeah, this party is garbage anyway," Amy replied. The three set their red solo cups on whatever was nearest to them, trying their best to spite the hosts by doing so. They left the apartment and made their way down to the ground floor, fixated on their phones. Three rats, combing through their social media absentmindedly while they left safety to enter the night. They flipped and scrolled through their various feeds and notifications, reveling in the drama that they had all contrived.

They almost didn't notice when Amy was silently dragged into an alleyway, seemingly by the shadows themselves. She felt the pressure of the ground relieving her hindpaws of her weight, a pressure on her muzzle like none she had ever felt keeping her silent as her friends walked away. It took almost fifteen feet of walking for Kate to notice a lack of claw clicks behind her, and she turned around

"Woah… Amy?" She said. Taylor turned and the smirk from her phone was wiped clean from her face. A small noise, like a groan, escaped from the alleyway. The two looked at each other, wondering if they should risk themselves to help their friend.

"A-Amy?" Taylor said. Another peep. Taylor started to creep towards the alleyway, Kate following just behind. She turned on the flashlight on her phone and swept the white light through the black alley. Something above was dimly illuminated by the reflected light from the walls and ground. She swept the light over Amy, who was a couple of her body-lengths above the ground, motionless, like an angel descending from the sky. But she was not descending, and if her expression was any indication, she felt more like she was firmly in the grasp of hell than farewelling the kingdom of God. Kate screamed.

"AMY!" She squealed, wanting her friend to stop this cruel trick at once. Her voice was quickly silenced by a pressure on her throat and face. She grabbed at herself, trying to remove the invisible paws. Taylor started to run and was quickly thrown to the ground, feeling the pavement hit her chest and snout with a thump. Her phone shattered, plunging the alleyway into darkness once again. They were all kept from breathing by an invisible force, slowly drifting into an unwelcome sleep.

Once the three were unconscious the sewer cover was lifted from the ground, the living bodies gently floated through the opening. A figure, obscured by darkness, followed, climbing down the ladder. Mammal would be a correct yet misleading term for the monster that was currently silencing his prey. He trudged through the sewer, holding his wiry paw over the bodies like he was guiding a raft, one that floated on air. It was a short walk before they arrived at another ladder that lead back to the sewer that mammals called Zootopia.

It too was rife with refuse and sewage. The culture was a river of waste that drowned and consumed all who fell prey to its falsities. _Buy this and your friends will envy you. Wear this and your peers will drool over you. Do this and you will be respected. Say this and the misanthropic gods of right and wrong will pat your back._

…

The gray fox had just dumped a pile of bricks on the two's minds, but it lit a fire in their hearts. Another murder was unexpected and unacceptable, and they weren't going dilly dally.

"Where?" Judy asked immediately.

"Drive me, I'll show you," Rodger said. She nodded to him and they started walking out of the building. In seconds they were all piling into the cruiser.

"Did you call it in?" Judy asked as she started the engine.

"Yeah, I told the guy to get you two but he said something about procedure, so when Heather told me you guys were here I came running," he replied, Judy pulling the car into the street.

"Good choice," Nick said. A new crime scene was exactly what they needed, despite being the opposite of what they wanted.

"Is it the same picture?" Nick asked, wondering if the mammal was using a printing method or stamp of some kind

"No, it's a waterfall this time, it's bigger than the other one," he said.

"How big? Too big to be a rat?" Judy asked.

"No… well, not for a kinda big rat I guess," he said. It was a short drive before they were in front of a small shopping mall, only a few miles away from the previous site. They got out and Rodger lead the way.

"I noticed it as I was walking by, I haven't told anyone, figured we don't need a panic," he said, leading them to an alley with loading docks and dumpsters. Layed out over the dark brick was a glossy crimson picture of a waterfall in, again, immaculate detail. Even the current of the water as it flowed over the rocks was drawn with impeccable precision.

"This looks like the same culprit… unless this sort of thing is becoming popular," Nick said. Judy looked away to scan the environment, finding cameras facing almost every direction.

"Looks like we might be better covered here," she said.

"Huh?" Nick asked, not sure what she was talking about.

"The cameras, there are security cameras everywhere, we should-" she started, cut off by a strange sensation on her hindpaw. She lifted her foot to find the white fur smeared with blood. She wretched but quickly composed herself, looking at the sewer cover she had just stepped on. "Get a forensics team," she said, Nick quickly pulling out his phone. She looked over to Rodger, who was covering his mouth in shock, not realizing how fresh the scene was until then.

"We gotta take you home," Judy said, not sure who was going to do it.

"Wait… I… can I stay, and, just, watch?" He asked. He wanted more than anything to take part, or at least observe, this investigation. Judy huffed, not wanting to disappoint him but unable to really say yes.

"I know you want to be an officer, but we can't just let civilians in on a case like this," she said.

"I know… but… please?" He pleaded. She looked him in the eyes, not to challenge him, but to confirm to herself that he really did care.

"I'll ask the chief," she said. She took out her phone and dialed the Buffalo directly.

_"If this is about the scene, forensics should be on the way,"_ he answered, not exactly in a chatty mood.

"No, we've got a kit who wants to stay on scene for the investigation, he wants to be an officer. He's a fox, dropped out of school and he's waiting to get into the academy, he's not playing around. If you think there's any leniency in the rules, this would be the time to make an exception," she said.

_"Hm… use your discretion, Hopps. I'll permit the risk of any legal issues, those will be your responsibility, but I will not permit risk to him,"_ the chief said. She hung up and thought about it for a moment.

"Promise not to do anything stupid?" She asked the fox.

"I promise! I'll just stand and observe, and ask a question here and there," he said.

"Ok. There is a lot of nondisclosure type stuff, so just don't talk about anything that you see or hear, I'll let you stick around… how long till forensics gets here?" She asked Nick.

"They said half an hour," Nick replied.

"Do you want to find the security office while I tape off the scene?" Judy asked, not wanting to track blood indoors.

"Sure. Come on Rusty, let's go catch a murderer," he said. The two foxes left Judy to close off the area and went into the building, looking for someone who had access to the camera feeds. It was a rather small mall, with only one floor, but it was confusing to navigate nonetheless. Nick felt the pressure building as he walked, the seconds ticking by. He noticed a security guard, a black bear, and rushed over.

"Excuse me, we've got a crime scene in the loading docks, I need to see the security feeds," he said.

"Woah… yeah, I'll take you to the security office," the bear said.

"Why woah?" Nick asked as they started walking briskly.

"I was just there when I got off my shift last night, musta been four A.M. there was nothing back there," he said. He opened a white steel door that almost completely blended in with the wall around it and took them into a set of office spaces.

"Well, it's not your usual crime scene…" Nick said. The bear almost didn't want to know what that meant.

"These guys should be able to help you," he said as he showed them to a room with two mammals sitting in front of dozens of monitors.

"Thank you," Nick said as he entered the room.

"Hey officer, what can we do for you?" A pig asked, her voice relaxed, completely oblivious to the murder that had happened right under her nose.

"We gotta look over the camera feeds for the loading docks, there's been… a murder," Nick said. The pig and her partner, a bobcat, gasped.

"Oh shit…" the bobcat said. "I'll start pulling up last night's feeds… you have any idea on time?" He said.

"Not really, probably after midnight," Nick said.

"Wait, that security guard said he left at four last night and didn't see anything," Rodger said.

"Good catch," Nick said.

"So after four P.M?" The pig said.

"A.M," Rodger corrected. The two nodded and got to work pulling up the security footage from the night before. Soon enough the screens were filled with various views of the loading docks. Nick grunted.

"The sewer cover is in shadow," Rodger said. Only a portion of it was exposed to the lights, most of which were focused on the loading docks themselves. The wall was also mostly in shadow, but part of it was exposed. They watched as the videos were sped up, the time in the corner flying by. Then the image appeared on the wall, almost magically. They reversed the video and played it at normal speed, Nick getting closer to the monitor with the best view.

The drain cover slowly lifted and slid to the side, out further into the light, leaving the perpetrator in the dark. A few moments passed before what appeared to be a snake worked it's way into the light, halfway between the wall and the cover. It was dark, almost like ink flowing over the pavement. _It's the blood…_ Nick thought. The illuminated portion of the wall then revealed how the painting was made; dark tendrils covered a portion of the wall, filling in the details of the painting too fast for the eye to see.

The pig, bobcat, and Rodger all looked to Nick, and he stared at the monitor with a sternness and severity that he could have only learned from Bogo himself. He sighed and walked to the door, locking it.

"The three of you are under temporary arrest until I notify you otherwise. Give me your phones, BlueTooth headsets, anything that you could use to communicate, and step away from the computer console," he said.

The three were terrified.

They all did as he said, taking out their phones and giving them to him, stepping away from the computer, and keeping their mouths shut tight.

"I am Agent Wilde of the Agency of Investigation and Internal Intelligence, operating under special agents Vecher and Miller. What you just witnessed is an instance of what we call an Enigma, a supernatural event. My team works to keep these phenomena secret to prevent public panic and to do everything we can to protect the public.

"Right now, I need you all to swear that you will never speak of what you just saw, or what I have told you. Failure to do this will result in severe legal and monetary penalties. Any questions?" He asked. They all shook their heads no.

"Ok, good. Now, I'll need you to save that footage to my phone and delete any copies on the computer. If anyone asks where the recordings went, you were directed by the police to delete it," he said. He handed his phone to the bobcat and he got to work getting the videos on the phone.

"Who… what…?" Rodger started.

"I can't tell you anything, sorry bud. It's not fun to keep secrets if that makes you feel any better," he said. He hadn't told them about the hush money yet, he was saving the best for last. The bobcat gave his phone back.

"You aren't gonna… like, hurt us-" the pig started.

"No, no, definitely not. The opposite, in fact. You get one-thousand dollars, and you get one-thousand dollars, and you get one-thousand dollars!" He joked, imitating Osprey Winfrey. They all looked at him like he had lost his mind.

"What?"

"I'm paying you to keep quiet," he said as he started navigating his phone.

"Doesn't sound all too bad to me…"


	4. Pulvis Sumus

**A/N: Another chapter! I've been getting more ideas as I go along, and I'm hoping I'll be able to put it all together nicely, otherwise this story is gonna be a hot mess XD**

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

He was still slightly terrified. The car ride was almost silent, and Nick didn't know what to say either, though for slightly different reasons. Rodger had just discovered that role model was hiding terrible secrets, and the world was not what it seemed. Nick, on the other paw, didn't know how exactly he should engage in a heart-to-heart with a troubled young adult. He was still new to the whole emotions thing.

"This the place?" Nick asked as he eyed a house.

"Yeah," Rodger said, the other fox pulling the car into the driveway of a quaint suburban home. "Thanks for taking me home… well, and the thousand dollars," he said with a laugh.

"No problem, and hey, don't spend it all at once," Nick said, almost jokingly.

"How do I explain how I got it?" He asked.

"For your parents, just say the A3I needs you to keep a secret. Otherwise, say you won a lottery or something. Don't tell anyone about what you saw, seriously, not even your parents. Doctors, though, you can tell doctors. And, if you have anyone pressuring you to talk, someone that seems more than just curious, give me and Judy a call or report it to the A3I," Nick said.

"Ok," Rodger said, looking down at the check in his paws.

"Sorry we had to kick you out like this. You'll be one of our coworkers before you know it though, I believe in you," Nick said. Rodger smiled.

"Thanks dude… I guess I better get home."

"Yeah, cya around bud!" Nick said. He got out of the cruiser and waved as the officer drove away. Now he had to explain to his parents where he had been all day. He knocked on the door and his father opened it, smiling once he saw who it was.

"Well there you are, we're gonna eat dinner soon!" he said.

"Great, what're we having?" Rodger said, surprised that he wasn't angry.

"Chicken tacos. So what were you up to?" He asked as they went to the kitchen.

"Oh nothin…"

"Come on Rodge, getting dropped off by Nick Wilde, riding in the front seat of a police cruiser, sounds like something to me," he pressured, patting his son on the back. Rodger smiled, embarrassed slightly. _So that's why he's not angry._

"I was kinda shadowing them, I actually found another vandalism and I brought them to it," he said as they entered the kitchen.

"Cool man," his father said, proud despite his doubts. He started setting the table, his wife outside at the grill, preparing the chicken.

"Yeah… so have you guys changed your minds?" Rodger asked, sitting at the table.

"Well, we're still not a hundred percent, but it seems to be going pretty damn well so far, and you'll be doing better than crawling through shit all day," he said.

"Oh come on, you don't crawl through shit all day, you're a civil engineer."

"And that involves lots of time in the sewer."

Rodger rolled his eyes, but soon after realized that it might not be such a bad thing.

...

The sun was triumphant in the sky, beating down on everything in its sight. The blood on the wall was baking as it waited to be analyzed and cleaned. Judy stood in the taped off alley with a phone to her ear, alone, Nick having left to bring Rodger home. The case had suddenly gotten much more complicated.

"So we should get an A3I forensics team in here?" Judy asked the phone.

_"Yeah, you don't want a ZPD team getting involved in an Enigma,"_ James said, the deer alone in his office. The rabbit looked around at the sunlit loading docks.

"Yeah, I kinda figured… You have any advice or ideas?"

_"Well… use all the resources you have, get the national guard to sweep the sewers if you need to."_

"Ugh, it just had to be the sewers…"

_"Yeah they're gross but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. You could try getting a psychometer first, seems like it might spiritual or psychic."_

"Yeah, Nick was thinking the same about the psychometer… How's Tanya doing?"

_"Well she's definitely not in any danger, and doctors say she'll be ok, but she's in a lot of pain. She probably won't be back to work for a month," _James said.

"Sweet cheese… to think a rake took her down," Judy said.

_"Well, some credit goes to the sixty-pound flamethrower."_

"I still can't believe it."

_"Yeah… shit happens though.'_

"Don't I know it… I better get going with this scene. Thanks for the help, talk to you later," Judy said. James said goodbye, and the call was over. She went to the communication app that Tanya had given her and found the A3I's forensics department.

_"Agent Hopps?"_

"Yeah, hi, can I get a forensics team down to thirty-one and palm?"

_"Sure. Is this an Enigma?"_

"Yes," she replied. The phone clicked, and she looked at it. "Well that was quick…"

"What was?" Nick asked, walking up to the rabbit, finally done getting Rodger off the scene.

"I called for a forensics team."

"ZPD or A3I?"

"A3I. James said to keep the ZPD out. He also suggested we get a psychometer again," She said.

"Huh. Did you ask about getting one over here?"

"No, you think I should?"

"Never hurts. It would be better than having to go back to Tri-Pen, that's for sure," Nick said.

"I guess I'll call back… don't know who to call, though," Judy said. She started rummaging through the list of departments. She decided on the special activities division.

_"Agent Hopps! What's happenin?" _A happy voice said.

"Uh… well, not much, you know, just a crime scene... I'm calling because we need a prisoner for their abilities, do you think you could have them brought to us?" Judy asked.

_"Huh… not sure. If we get an agent to do it, sure, otherwise it might get weird legally, with them being a prisoner and all. You know anyone who might be up for it?"_

"Well, the only one I could think of is Agent Miller."

_"Ok. I'll give him a call and see what he says."_

"Sounds good, thank you," Judy said, hanging up. "They'll talk to James, they'd need an agent to do it."

"Hopefully they can figure that out quick, I don't want to waste any more time," Nick said, walking over to the sewer cover. His eyes were barely good enough to see through the hole into the darkness below.

_"Help!.."_ A distant voice called out. He recoiled.

"Woah, did you hear that?" He asked. Judy looked at him quizzically.

…

The wolf shot up from the couch, gasping for air, her nap rudely interrupted. The snow leopard in the chair across from her stared, wide-eyed, over her phone.

"You doin alright?" Tanya asked, startled and slightly confused. Clare took a moment to catch her breath.

"Hoh... yeah, just a nightmare," the wolf said, clutching her chest, her heart pounding. "Phew! That freaked me out…"

"Was it hell again?" Tanya asked, a strangely commonplace phrase for the two at this point.

"Uh… yeah? I think so… I don't really know," Clare said, looking around as if the answer was woven into the fibers of the carpet.

"Well, what happened?" Tanya asked, curious now.

"I'm not really sure… I was held in place, wasn't chained up or anything I just couldn't move… there was a wall in front of me, I don't know if it was brick, or cobblestone, or what... it was kinda amorphous, you know? Then this blood - well it looked like blood anyway - like a shiny red liquid started creeping towards it. It started coming together, like tree roots, and I woke up before I saw what it made."

"What it made?" Tanya asked.

"Well, yeah, like…" Clare started, unsure where she got the idea that it was making something. "Kinda looked like it was making a picture. It made a rectangle and there were some shapes in it," she said. That struck Tanya, not hard enough to make her gasp, but enough to make her look at her phone.

"Huh…" she said, deep in thought.

"What?" Clare asked, wondering what the cat was thinking.

"James told me that Nick and Judy were on a case where someone was painting murals… with blood," she said, dumbfounded. Clare furrowed her brow, confused but terrified of the implications. _Must be a coincidence…_ the wolf thought, a weak reassurance. "You've never, like… experienced precognition or ESP before, have you?" Tanya asked.

"A who what?"

"Precognition, seeing things before they happen, or knowing things you couldn't possibly have learned…"

"No…" Clare said, feeling sick to her stomach. She knew all too well how knowledgeable Tanya was, and hearing her ask questions like that made her head spin.

"What about ESP? Extrasensory Perception… saw things others couldn't, felt things, like a presence…"

A shiver ran down Clare's spine.

"Tanya, you're creeping me out!" The wolf said. She was not in the mood for discovering an ability to communicate with the dead.

"It's ok Clare… have you?" She asked.

"No! God no! Or at least I hope not! Yeesh!" She said, wringing her paws. The thought was unpleasant.

"It's alright! just take a deep breath…" Tanya said. She returned her focus to her phone and hoped the canine would be able to calm herself down.

"What are you doing?" She asked Tanya.

"I'm texting James, just letting him know."

"Ok… ugh, I guess anything is possible. If I did have some sort of special... _thing_… what would that mean? Like, what would I do?"

"You'd probably help Nick and Judy with their case."

"Oh! Well, that's not that bad!"

"Yeah… um… you'd probably have to crawl through the sewers," Tanya said. Clare's ears went flat against her head.

…

She woke up, the smell of blood the first thing that met her. She opened her eyes but her vision didn't change. It was utter blackness, wherever she was. She started breathing heavily, the last thing she remembered was being dragged into an alleyway by an invisible force and choked into unconsciousness. Something shuffled next to her.

"Taylor?" Someone said, someone familiar.

"Amy?" She asked back. At least she wasn't alone.

"Oh thank god! I thought you were dead Taylor," Amy said, on the verge of tears.

"What's going on?" Taylor asked.

"I don't know! Some... monster kitnapped us and he… he killed Kate, he said he killed Aubrey too!"

"Oh god…" Taylor said, realizing pretty quickly that they were probably next. The way she was looking around - vacant, pale eyes wandering - made Amy uneasy.

"Can you see?" She asked.

"No, why?" Taylor replied, growing concerned. Amy didn't know how to tell her.

"I… it's nothing, just…"

"What? What's wrong?"

"Your eyes are… they're all cloudy and fucked up," Amy said. Taylor started panicking, breathing heavily and reaching for her eyes with a whimper. "Taylor! Tay! Stop!" She said, knowing that her friend was just wasting her breath.

"Where are we? What does it look like?"

"It's like… an old factory, it's close to the harbor. It's daytime right now… there's a puddle of blood n- next to us," she said, sobbing immediately after finishing the sentence.

"Amy who… who's blood?"

"ITS KATE'S!" She shouted, unable to control her voice. A shiver went down Taylor's back, and tears welled in her eyes. "I SAW IT HAPPEN!" She yelled.

"Stop screaming! He'll come back!" Taylor said through sobs.

"He's coming back anyway! He fucking ground her to a pulp with his mind! He's fucking telepathic! Nobody's gonna be able to stop him!"

Suddenly a door slammed in a distant corner of the building. The two scurried together, holding each other close. The only sound in the entire structure was their breathing. The blind rat buried her muzzle into her friend's chest, hoping that she could somehow protect her. Amy watched as the figure quietly, slowly crept through the building, walking over to the two. She held Taylor closer.


	5. Impares Nascimur

"Hear what?" She asked back.

"I heard someone yelling from the sewer…" Nick said. Judy's eyes nearly popped out of her head, and she walked over to the cover. "Hello!?" Nick shouted. Again, faintly, he heard a voice. He looked at Judy, who gave him a weird look.

"You heard something again?" Judy asked.

"Yeah! Can't you?" Nick asked. There was no way he was hearing something that Judy wasn't.

"Is this some kind of trick, slick?" Judy asked, figuring she had caught him in the act.

"No! I can hear someone down there, Fluff!" He said. _I must be losing my mind! _He thought.

_He must be losing his mind…_ Judy thought.

"I can't hear anything… are you ok, Nick?"

"Apparently not!" Nick said, starting to worry himself. Judy's phone then started vibrating, and she answered it, hoping that Nick wouldn't completely lose his mind while she took a call.

"Hello?"

_"Hey, its Tanya, I heard you needed a psychometer,"_ Tanya said. A lightbulb went on in Judy's head, and she looked at Nick. _No way…_

"I think I might have one," she said.

_"Wait, really? Then why is everyone bothering me-"_

"No, hold on. We are on this scene, and Nick is saying that he can hear a voice from the sewer that I can't."

_"Is he just going crazy? Cause there's no way- Wait! The psychometer I wanted to bring was Clare! What if…" _Tanya said, trailing off.

"What if what?"

_"Hold on…" _she said, thinking.

"Tanya what..?"

_"Shush!"_ She said, gasping soon after. _"What if Clare and Nick gained psychic abilities after they went to hell!"_ Tanya wondered aloud. Judy's face twisted into a mixture of confusion of concern.

"That would be… interesting," Judy said.

_"It would be perfect! I'll bring Clare over, thirty-one and palm right?"_

"Yeah… but aren't you-?" Judy started, the phone beeping mid-sentence. "Injured…"

"What was that all about?" Nick asked.

"Tanya thinks you and Clare have psychic abilities, so she's bringing Clare over," Judy told him.

"Psychic? I'm not… Wait, Isn't she-?"

"Injured? Yeah, apparently not enough," Judy said, shaking her head.

…

"Really! I'll be right there!... Wait, where were they?" Tanya asked the phone, on the edge of her seat.

_"Tanya you can't, you're too hurt!" _James said.

"Just tell me where!" She said, too excited to miss the opportunity. Clare was facepawing from the couch the whole time. She knew what this meant.

_"Ugh… the loading docks of the mall on thirty-one and palm…"_ James said.

"Great!" Tanya said, hanging up. She dialed Judy.

_"Hello?" _The rabbit said.

"Hey, its Tanya, I heard you needed a psychometer," Tanya said. There was a short pause.

_"I think I might have one,_" Judy said.

"Wait, really? Then why is everyone bothering me-" Tanya started, Judy cutting her off.

_"No, hold on. We are on this scene, and Nick is saying that he can hear a voice from the sewer that I can't," _she said. Tanya's face twisted slightly.

"Is he just going crazy? Cause there's no way- Wait! The psychometer I wanted to bring was Clare! What if…" she said, trailing off as a thought crept into her head.

_"What if what?"_

"Hold on…" she said, thinking. The thought was slowly squeezing its way into her head, like a piece of jello sliding through a mold.

_"Tanya what..?"_

"Shush!" She said, gasping as the thought plopped down onto her brain. "What if Clare and Nick gained psychic abilities after they went to hell!" Tanya wondered aloud.

_"That would be… interesting,"_ Judy said, sounding unconvinced.

"It would be perfect! I'll bring Clare over, thirty-one and palm right?" Tanya said, unable to control her excitement.

_"Yeah-" _was all she heard before she hung up.

"Ok, let's go! You can drive, can't you?" She asked Clare.

"Well, yeah, but what about you! Your arm and leg are all screwed up!"

"Oh pfft, my arm isn't that bad, and I designed a thing for my leg. It's kinda like a prosthetic, I don't really know what to call it, but it lets me walk just fine! Come on, let's go!" Tanya said. Clare facepawed as Tanya hopped on her good leg to a cabinet. She retrieved a strange looking device and put it on her leg, the contraption attaching itself from her hip all the way to her ankle, a bent piece of metal at the end to support her weight.

"Ok, that's kinda cool…" Clare said, impressed with the mechanical device.

"I've always gotta trick up my sleeve… aw, crap, missed opportunity… if it went under the pant leg I coulda said: or in this case, in my pants," Tanya said with a laugh.

"Isn't that more of a male thing to say?"

"Females can say inappropriate things about their pant-contained… things!" Tanya defended.

"Well, maybe if you're a hyena, yeah."

"Ha! Yeah, what a trick that would be! Could you imagine? Like seriously, imagine, like, being a male wolf, with no idea about the whole pseudopenis thing, and you're having a good time with some cute hyena and suddenly she whips it out on you!" Tanya said, cracking herself up over the thought.

"God, let's just go before you say something even weirder," Clare said, trying to usher Tanya to the garage.

"Oh come on, it's funny!"

…

"I am not crazy, Carrots!" Nick said.

"Then why are you hearing voices?"

"You heard Tanya, I'm psychic!"

"Oh pfft, why would it only show up now?" Judy asked. He was slightly flustered.

"Well, because of the case, and the spiritual energy of the scene and… I don't know, Fluff! Why _aren't _YOU psychic?" Nick asked. Judy was utterly confused, waving her paws around, the flusterer becoming the flusteree. Suddenly a van with the insignia of a cleaning company plowed through the police tape, stopping in the alley.

A group of mammals in janitorial clothes stepped out. Nick and Judy were completely lost for words, but soon realized it was the A3I forensics team. The group got to work quite quickly; a cheetah with a camera started taking pictures everywhere, two antelopes getting to work on the mural, and a raccoon approaching them.

"Hi, Agent Dan Lesexiong, nice to meet you," he said as he extended a paw. The two shook it and introduced themselves.

"Agent Judy Hopps."

"Agent Nick Wilde."

"I've heard a lot about you guys, terrible things of course," he said with a smile, making the two chuckle. "So what's going on here?" He asked.

"This is the second vandalism where someone seems to have ground up a mammal and painted a picture with the remains," Nick said. "We just got our first clue; apparently whoever is doing this is using the sewers to get around."

"Interesting. So we should probably look over the sewers too?" Dan asked.

"Maybe. We have… uhh… someone coming to help with the sewers… maybe." Judy said, figuring Tanya would want something to do with it.

"I'd imagine you can't tell me?"

"Probably?" Judy said, unsure.

"Your guys' job is so confusing," the raccoon said. One of the antelopes walked over, a device of some kind in her hoof.

"DNA test came back, it's a rat, female, age eighteen, her name's Kate Reginald. She was reported missing at one A.M. yesterday," the antelope said. Judy and Nick were too caught in the moment to focus on how quickly they had performed a DNA test.

"Not last night but the night before… that's two hours before the first vandalism. Nick, when was the first victim reported missing?" Judy asked.

"I think it was five P.M…" he said.

"So the vandalisms took place within a few hours of each other one day apart, and two of the mammals went missing the same day... Are there any other rats reported missing? Any connections between the two victims?" Judy asked. The raccoon took out his phone and started searching.

"Yeah… there's two other rats from the same school missing, Little Rodentia's high school, the other rats are Taylor Panelli and Amy Roberts, both seventeen, reported missing with Kate. Social media says… the four were friends, all of them except for Aubrey went to a party the night they were reported missing. Aubrey didn't make it to the party," Dan said.

_They're probably going to make the next mural early tomorrow morning, _Judy thought. Tanya's car then pulled up, the snow leopard excitedly stumbling out while Clare slowly stepped out.

"_Help_ has arrived," Nick mumbled, the injured special agent hobbling over.

"Hi guys! Good to see you!" She said, Clare walking up to her side. It was odd seeing Tanya in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and the device on her leg made it all the more unusual.

"Good to see you too…" Judy said, confused, staring at the brace.

"Oh! I made a thing for my leg, I can walk just fine now," she said, pointing to the device. Clare was staring into the distance behind Judy.

"Huh… well, you're already out here, so that's already done. Good to see you, Clare!" Judy said to the blanked out wolf. Clare didn't respond, she just started walking to the sewer cover.

"Clare?" Tanya asked.

"I can hear them…" she said. Nick walked over and listened with her; he could still hear it too. The two canids looked at each other and back at the other two.

"We should probably get out of here, shouldn't we?" The raccoon asked, Tanya absentmindedly nodding. The two psychics returned their focus to the sewer.

_How are we gonna get the cover off?_ Nick thought.

"I don't know," Clare said. Nick looked at her.

"I didn't say that," he said. Tanya was excited but Judy was confused.

"I knew it!"

"I kinda knew it… but why?" Judy asked.

"Who knows! This shit is super mysterious, but I'm too excited to think about it," Tanya said, stumbling over.

"So, how are we gonna get the cover off?" Nick asked, out loud this time. Tanya put her free paw to her chin, the other arm in a sling. _I could probably still lift it…_ she thought. She walked over to it and got two fingers in the hole in the middle.

"Tanya!" Clare complained. The snow leopard was in no condition to do this.

"I'm fine, I can do it!"

"Tanya, you have one arm and one leg, how the hell do you expect to do this?" Judy complained. Tanya started pulling.

"I Gotit!" She said, straining. The other three facepawed as she changed her position, instead straddling the cover, a leg on either side, her stance stretching a majority of her body length. She bent down and grabbed the hole in the middle again, a feat of flexibility and balance on its own, not to mention from someone with a broken leg. Her tail flicked about as she prepared to pull, and the other three marveled at her figure, the sweatpants and brace doing little to hide her toned legs and glutes.

"My God, she's gotta take me to the gym some time," Clare hoped.

"She's gotta give me some tips," Judy gushed.

"And when you're all done, you three should make a calendar," Nick quipped. The two females next to him smacked him on the back of the head. The sewer cover easily left its seat in the pavement, and Tanya gave a grunt as she heaved it forward, leaving the hole open for the four. She panted and straightened up, turning to the three. She cocked her head slightly but quickly realized what they were looking at and covered herself with her tail.

"Guys!" She whined, embarrassed though admittedly flattered. The three closed their mouths and shifted their focus to her eyes. "Ha! You creeps! Clare, you're like my daughter at this point! Judy, your boyfriend is right there! Got something to tell him? Nick, you!... well, I guess I can't really criticize you," Tanya said.

"See, I have an excuse," Nick said with a smirk. The others smacked him again.

"So are we gonna get in the sewer or not?" Tanya asked.

"Oh god… we have to, don't we?" Clare said.

"If you want these rats to have a chance, we better," Nick said.

_She did warn me about this_, Clare thought.

"Yeah, you're ready, come on," Judy said, having heard Clare's thought. Clare was astonished but the other three seemed not to notice, Tanya already starting to climb down. The ladder was definitely made for larger mammals, the set of bars more like a gymnastics puzzle for Nick and Judy. Eventually, Tanya was at the bottom, waiting, Clare stuck above the two.

"Put your foot… no, here," Judy said, trying to direct Nick.

"Ok… where're your paws?" Nick asked.

"I'm-"

"Oh just jump, I'll catch you!" Tanya said, impatient.

"Ok, Ms. One-arm-wonder!" Judy chided.

"Come on, we don't have all day," Clare said from above.

"Everybody calm down," Nick said.

"No!" The three chorused back.

"Come on, I can catch you," Tanya tried to convince them. Judy sighed and let go of the ladder, Tanya catching her between her paw and her tail, Nick soon following. Clare made it to the bottom and the four stood around for a moment, Judy and Tanya waiting for the two to do something.

"Hello?" Nick asked.

_"Over here!" _A distant voice whispered. The two canids looked at each other and gulped, turning towards the dark tunnel.

"This way I guess," Nick said. They all took out their phones and turned on the flashlights, except for Tanya. She pulled a massive flashlight out of her arm sling, lighting the tunnels like the sun.

"A hundred watts. Always come prepared," she said with a smirk. The four started walking, staying along the raised platform next to the river of sewage. The smell was surprisingly mild, still gross, but too faint to be truly offensive. Tanya's light served them well, and there was no darkness in front of them, only behind.

_"Help, this way!" _The voice continued. Tanya and Judy followed as the two psychics lead the way. Judy turned around and could swear she saw something shift in the darkness, but she ignored it, figuring it was just the shadows dancing.

"Who are you?" Clare asked the distant voice.

_"It's Kate,"_ it replied.

"Kate… my god," Nick gasped.

"Who's that?" Tanya asked.

"The last victim," Judy replied.

"Oh… I'm sorry about what happened to you, Kate," she said, her voice echoing.

"She said 'just save my friends, please,'" Nick repeated for the spirit.

"We will," Judy affirmed. They continued to walk through the underground tunnels, guided by a spirit of a young rat, unsure where they were going.


	6. Pulverem Reverterimus

**A/N: It has been way too long! Sorry for the slow update, but I've been getting stuck with writing recently. I couldn't figure it out for a while, I couldn't write long chapters anymore! But I think I just need to slow down a little and add slightly more slice of life type stuff, just to bring the pace back a bit. Hope you all enjoy this chapter, and don't you worry, this story will be finished!**

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

The four kept their slow pace through the Zootoptian sewer system. The plan was to continue until Tanya's flashlight ran out of battery, then they would simply have to switch to their phones. The catch was that there was no way of knowing when they would be plunged into darkness. All Tanya knew was that her flashlight was too powerful to run very long. The two listened and followed intently as their psychic guides took them through the labyrinth.

"Ew," Judy said quietly, a huge - for normal standards - spider on the wall. Tanya stopped and looked at it for a moment. "Don't you dare…" Judy said.

"What?"

"You're gonna eat that thing, aren't you… it's the size of my head."

"Yeah, I'll pass this time… I don't want to take my chances on something that can fight back," Tanya said. Judy let out a relieved sigh and shivered as the creature crawled into the darkness left behind by Tanya's light.

"Come on, let's keep moving," Nick called to the two. They continued to creep forward, occasionally turning at an intersection of tunnels. Tanya figured it would be a good time to get more information.

"So who's doing this?" Tanya asked the emptiness, a reverberating echo replying. Judy watched as shadows danced on the edge of her vision, the dark walls behind them a blank canvas for her mind.

"It's another rat, she thinks," Nick said.

"She's not sure, he's really… deformed," Clare said.

"Huh," escaped Tanya, the cat wondering if that had something to do with the individual's abilities. "Do you know where your friends are?" She asked, a few seconds of silence reigned before Nick relayed what Kate said.

"She only knows the way he moved her remains through the sewer. He killed her in front of her friends the moment she woke up, she didn't pay attention to where she was until after he had gotten to the sewer," he said. There was a brief pause in conversation and the four crept on. Judy then got the nerve to ask a question that had been eating at here from the start.

"Are we the only ones down here?" She asked. Fear crept into each one of them with the thought of unknown company and darkness suddenly enveloped them, Tanya's batteries failing. They stood, motionless, shocked, before slowly reaching for their phones. Judy reached down and felt another paw on her pocket. She looked down to see the shadow of a rat, a ghostly nothingness in the already pitch-black tunnel. She gasped and the apparition disappeared.

"You ok?" Tanya asked as Judy coughed and caught her breath, a light from Nick's phone dimly illuminating the four.

"Yeah, I'm ok, I just saw… something. I think it was Kate, she was touching my leg," she said, trying to hold back another bout of coughs.

"Was that you, Kate?" Tanya asked the tunnels. A few seconds passed, and the two canids started looking around.

"Kate?" Clare asked the darkness. It was perhaps the first time in her life she had hoped there was a ghost nearby.

"Kate?" Nick asked.

"You guys aren't hearing her?"

"No… hello!" Nick shouted. "What the hell happened?" He asked. Tanya looked around for a moment, thinking. The three watched as she rubbed her chin and scratched the back of her neck.

"I think she might have crossed over, but I don't know…" she said, unsure where the rat could have gone.

"Well, what are we supposed to do now?" Judy asked.

"Can we get out of the sewer?" Clare asked. It sparked a thought in Tanya.

"Maybe this is where we're supposed to be," she said, giving a renewed energy to the group. Tanya followed the other three as they swept their phone lights over the ceiling, looking for another maintenance hole. They found one only a few feet from where they stood and Tanya started climbing first, the only one of the group strong enough to remove the cover.

The ladder shuddered and clinked as the cat climbed, her leg brace banging against it. She made it to the top and looped one of her hindpaws through the rungs to steady herself, her only good arm being used to remove the cover. She put her paw to it and pushed, the heavy steel plate barely budging. She gave it a shove, dislocating it from its seat, and started pushing it aside. The sound of chatter and music filled the air, and she wondered what the hell they had stumbled upon.

The wedding guests watched, stunned, as the cover was pushed out of the way by a white paw, a snow leopard with her arm in a sling slowly crawling out. She stood up and looked around, stunned, while the other three crawled out. Nobody was any less confused as two officers made it to the top.

"Hi, John…" Tanya said meekly to one of the stunned celebrators. The wolf cocked his head and gave a small wave.

"Sorry…" Judy said, the group of mammals giving various shrugs and sounds of indifference. Tanya put the sewer cover back on and they all quietly walked out of the open-air venue.

"Are you guys also getting the feeling that we aren't in the right place?" Judy asked once they were across the street. They were still in Savannah central.

"You must be psychic," Nick joked.

"If this isn't the place, what happened to Kate?"

"She must have crossed over," Tanya said. She didn't have another explanation. The group stood motionless, hitting a collective brick wall.

"If that's what happened, then what's the plan?" Judy asked.

"Maybe we could map out the sewers and compare the locations of the scenes, see if there's any correlation," Tanya suggested.

* * *

The rag-tag team of four entered the ZPD, the officers struggling to explain the presence of the wolf and cat in sweatpants and t-shirts. They eventually resorted to "A3I business" and worked their way to the office spaces. They told the two larger mammals to grab chairs from the other cubicles and they all sat around the computer as Judy looked up a map of the sewer system. Eventually, she came across the government's utility layout map.

"Woah," Judy said. It was _very_ complex.

"Man… even the subways don't have that many colors," Tanya said, looking at the technicolor maze.

"Ok, we gotta start somewhere. It's a rat, right? They must have access somewhere in Little Rodentia," Nick said. Judy nodded and zoomed into Little Rodentia and they were heavily relieved. The map was much clearer, showing what each line represented without everything overlapping constantly. There were a few X marks throughout the area, indicating access covers.

"There's only like six," Clare said.

"Yeah… where was the party the three were at?" Judy asked aloud. Nick took out his phone and started looking, the other three waiting on him.

"It was… it was right here," he said, pointing to the place on the monitor. A short distance away from his claw was a maintenance cover, situated in an alleyway.

"That's where the guy got those three rats," Clare said.

"Ok, write the location of that cover down Nick, we better check it out," Judy said. She then zoomed out and Clare gasped, the other three turning to her.

"What?"

"Don't you guys see that?" She asked.

"See what?" Judy asked. Before anyone had time to react, Tanya grabbed a pen and paper from the desk.

"Draw it," she told the wolf. Clare immediately gestured for Judy to get out of the way and put the paper on the computer monitor, beginning to outline a strange, jumbled, maze-like structure. After only a few seconds it began to take shape; Clare was drawing a forest. Suddenly she stopped. After a few seconds, she pulled the paper away from the screen.

"What?" She asked herself.

"Is that what you saw?" Tanya asked.

"Yeah, but it… I don't know, it wasn't this clear, like, this is obviously a forest, what I was seeing was just… something kinda overlayed with the map," she said.

"What does it mean?" Judy asked Tanya.

"I don't know… in terms of what it means for Clare, I think… I think she's, ha! She's Clare-voyant!" Tanya said, realizing the irony mid-sentence.

"What?!" The wolf exclaimed, stunned.

"I think you can see the future. I'll bet that tomorrow we'll wake up and there'll be a forest drawn in blood somewhere," Tanya said. The wolf looked at the drawing with horror.

"But where?" Nick asked.

"Put the thing up against the screen again," Tanya said, Clare doing so after coming back to her senses. They stared at the overlaid lines for a few minutes before sighing.

"Looks like a bunch of lines to me," Nick said.

"Well, if it is a forest, then at least we'll have something," Judy said.

"Yeah… I'd hate to be clairvoyant _and_ useless, that'd _really_ suck."

"Is there really nothing else we can do? We're just gonna wait until another rat gets plastered over a wall?" Nick asked.

"Unless someone comes up with an idea, I think that's what we'll have to do," Tanya said, cringing.

"It is getting late…" Judy noted.

"How about dinner?" Clare asked. They all nodded to each other.

"So, where are we gonna go?" Nick asked as they all stood to leave the office.

"Somewhere with spicy things and fish," Clare said. Nick and Tanya agreed on fish, Judy figuring she'd be able to get a salad regardless of where they went. They decided on a fast food restaurant popular for their fish tacos and spicy peppers. Clare had a thing for spicy food, unreasonably spicy food, and the other three were shocked to hear her order a fish taco with habanero peppers.

"I hate it when you do this," Tanya said, more playfully than anything.

"They're tasty!" She retorted. They made their way from the counter and sat in a booth that was decidedly the cleanest in the establishment.

"How can you eat that? I'd be crying for like hours," Judy asked.

"You just gotta work your way up to it. Once you can eat a dish chock full of fresh jalapenos, you're ready to move up to a few serrano peppers, then once you can eat those no problem, you move up to thai peppers, and once you're good with those, you're ready for habaneros," She said.

"Interesting… and why would you do this to yourself?" Nick asked.

"Eh, for fun. Also, habaneros have the best flavor of any pepper in the world. It's like the fruitiest, sweetest pepper flavor ever, it's awesome."

"And then smoke comes out of your ears. I'll believe it when I can actually taste one and not be dying," Tanya said. She had mistakenly tried one of the peppers in hopes of tasting the flavor, but it just hurt.

"You gotta work your way up to it!" Clare defended. She liked her peppers. Their number was called and Tanya stood up to get it.

"Would you sit down, I've let you exert yourself enough today," Clare said.

"Oh, yeah," the cat realized, sitting back down. She looked at her sling'd arm and braced leg and sighed.

"Sorry Tanya," Judy said, sympathetic.

"It's ok, shit happens. One moment you're fighting al-" she started, catching herself before mentioning their activities in public. "-a war and the next you're on the ground with a rake through your paw and a broken arm," she said rather deadpan. Judy frowned and Nick stared at the floor, unsure whether there was anything that could cheer her up. Clare noticed all of their expressions when she walked back with the bag.

"Come on, let's eat some tacos, that'll get you feeling better," she said with an almost devious smile. Tanya cracked a smile too.

"You know me well…" she said as her mood softened. If Tanya could be called a sucker for anything, it was food, and Clare knew it well. They all started eating, the other three taking a few bites before they stopped to watch Clare eat, waiting for her reaction. She took another bite of her taco and a thick slice of an orange pepper fell out, the wolf immediately picking it up to eat it. She stopped when she realized the others were staring with their mouths open in shock. She rolled her eyes at the group and tossed the pepper in her mouth.

"I think the fumes are making my eyes burn a little," Tanya said.

"Oh, would you guys stop it?" Clare joked. Judy started to retort when Nick turned and suddenly pushed himself away from her, backing himself into the corner of the booth. The other three looked at him as he started to hyperventilate and close his eyes.

"Nick?" Judy asked, scared for him.

"It's not real… I… It's not real, I'm just going crazy…" he said quietly, starting to calm himself slightly.

"Nick what?-" Judy started again, the others too shocked to say anything. Nick opened his eyes again and looked at her, shaking his head and putting his elbows on the table, resting his head on his paws.

"You… you were a rat, Judy… I looked over, and I saw you as a giant rat," he said. The other three looked at each other, stunned. Tanya had a feeling she knew what was happening.

"Try to see it again," she said. Nick looked at her, confused. "Just try it," she urged. He looked at Judy and tried to focus on seeing a rat, seeing something else. She started blurring slightly but it wasn't like before, so he tried harder. Suddenly the fuzziness disappeared and she was a rat again, wearing a pink shirt and blue jeans. His eyes bulged out of his head.

"What the hell is goin on here!" He said.

"Don't worry, it's ok Nick. We need to get out of here though," Tanya said, noting the attention they had drawn. There weren't many other mammals there but those that were had their eyes on the group. They all stood and quickly left, Tanya and Clare cramming into the back of the officer's relatively small squad car. Judy drove and Tanya started talking again, in between bites of a taco.

"Judy, in the sewer, you were coughing, weren't you? After you saw the spirit?" She asked, followed by a crunch.

"Yeah?"

"Huh… what if you inhaled Kate? What if you have psychic abilities too, they just aren't the same? Clare is clairvoyant but she isn't seeing what Nick is, I think he might be psychometric. Judy, I think you are a medium, or maybe a conduit," Tanya said.

"Inhaled? What the-"

"Well, not inhaled, but somehow absorbed Kate, like became a vessel for her… by literally inhaling her," she said.

"Ok," Judy said, trying to take it in stride. "So, if that is what happened, what do I do? What's gonna happen?" She asked.

"Uhhh…" she said, an expert on the topic but not exactly an expert in the practice. Judy gripped the steering wheel harder, disturbed by the whole situation.

"So why is this all happening? We all went to hell but it's been months, why now?" She asked.

"I don't know that either…" Tanya said.


	7. Parturiunt Montes

**A/N: Sorry again for how slow going this has been, but I think things are gonna be picking up. This chapter felt great to write and I'm pretty much itching to start the next, so updates might be more frequent from here on.**

**Anyway, _enjoy!_**

* * *

"Well if you don't know, who does?" Judy asked, starting to get angry.

"I'll have to think, but the first person that pops into my mind is Tamela Amon, that caracal who helped with the Blakesley case," Tanya said. It felt odd to Clare, having her last name thrown around as the title of an Enigma.

"Ok… that's a start," Judy said. The car was silent for a few seconds, Judy navigating the roads of Sahara Square. Tanya spoke up again.

"Bucky and Pronk, I don't know exactly what good they'll be, but they're telepathic, they might be able to help. And Yax, that's who we need."

"Again? Really?" Nick asked, not exactly wanting to deal with the aloof ungulate.

"Yes, he performed a ritual that made him seem stupid to others in exchange for knowledge, I confirmed it with him after we dealt with that curse," Tanya said.

"Alright, we have a group of mammals who can help us figure out our abilities, great, but what do we do? We can't let this guy keep on killing rats," Judy asked.

"We need to check out that alleyway," Nick offered. Judy nodded her head, relieved.

"Yeah… yeah, we'll do that tomorrow," Judy said. Now they had a plan; the first order of business was to visit an alleyway, the next to assemble a team. Her mind was more at ease, no longer concerned with what was next. "What about your car Tanya?"

"I had it return to the house, it's got some autonomy to it," she said. Judy nodded, slightly disappointed that she had to go all the way to Tundratown rather than the loading docks from earlier. So now they were on the way to Tanya's home in Tundratown and Judy had nothing to do but focus on driving. Her mind was not going to limit itself to that though; she couldn't stop thinking about the spirit she had somehow "absorbed." It was the last thing she could have anticipated, a thought that wouldn't cross her mind even in the strangest nightmare. She had too many questions and all of them were assaulting her at once.

The rabbit wanted to be alone with Nick so that she could speak her mind since, as much as she liked the two, she couldn't talk as openly around them as she'd like. It would just have to wait until the arctic mammals were dropped off at their home. There was nothing to do but contemplate, a furrow in her brow, the roads in Tundratown furrowing them further. After only fifteen minutes of driving, she had a headache. There was nothing she wanted more than for this day to be over. The cruiser pulled into the driveway of Tanya's home, a decent-sized house in a quiet nook of Tundratown.

"Well, I guess that's it for today. Don't worry guys, we'll get this figured out," Tanya said as she got out.

"I sure hope so, see ya guys," Judy said.

"See ya," Clare said. Nick simply waved. The doors to the car closed and Judy pulled out of the driveway with a sigh.

"I'm losing it, Nick," She said.

"Yeah, me too. I don't like the fact that I can see the ghost inside of you any more than you want a ghost inside of you," he said.

"Can we not call her a ghost? Like. Seriously, it's a mammal, its Kate…" she said. Nick nodded and gave a small hum.

"Sorry, Kate… boy, this has been one hell of a day," he said. Perhaps they'd had worse, but it was hard to compare, or compete for that matter. Judy agreed with a hum. It was only seven o'clock but neither of them could wait to go to bed. The drive to the precinct was short, tedious nonetheless, and they were dreading the walk back. They stopped by Clawhauser's desk before heading home for the day.

"Hey guys!" He said with his usual smile. He quickly realized they were worse for wear.

"Hey Claws," Nick said, happy to see him but unable to really show it.

"Long day?" He asked with a sympathetic frown.

"Yeah… creepy crime, leads went nowhere, then it turned out to be something more for our A3I side and we ended up crawling through a sewer! Lots of fun. Plus there's some other stuff that we can't talk about which is probably worse than the whole sewer thing," Judy said.

"Wow, yeah, that's a day. You two gonna be wearing your suits tomorrow?" He asked.

"Seems like it. I guess there's always a bright side," Nick said, remembering how comfortable they were with their constant climate control.

"You gonna bring your gun?" Judy asked him.

"Eh, why not," he said. She bobbed her head in agreement.

"Don't get yourselves in any trouble," Ben said, concerned.

"You shoulda told us that this morning," Nick said.

"Ha! Well, you guys are always getting yourselves into messes, you'll be able to get yourselves out of this one," Ben said. It meant more than it usually would have.

"Thanks, Ben," Judy said.

"It's only the truth! You two headed home now?" He asked.

"That's the plan at least. We might not be in tomorrow, so, see you around Claws," Nick said.

"See ya guys! Go kick butt!" He said, the two waving as they left. The night had begun and the few stars that could overpower the light pollution were shining in the sky. They walked, the city bustling but in a more relaxed way than usual, and Judy leaned against Nick, holding his arm. It seemed like as good a time as any to take solace in each other's company. They arrived at their apartment complex at half-past seven, and they were in front of Nick's door two minutes later.

"Well Fluff, tomorrow is another day."

"Hopefully we won't acquire any more 'abilities' tomorrow," Judy said.

"Don't worry, Tanya is assembling her team of 'experts,'" he said with air quotes. Judy rolled her eyes. "Although, to be fair, we have been through worse."

"Now that I can agree with," Judy said with a smile, pointing to him lazily. "We have been through a lot," Judy said, her eyes widening as she realized how true it was.

"We could write a book," Nick said. Sadly it was only in jest; they couldn't tell anyone about what they had seen.

"Hah, and we'd get burned at the stake if we published it. I guess it's goodnight for now, see you tomorrow Slick."

"Goodnight Fluff," Nick said, giving her a hug. She hopped up and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek, waving as she walked away. She the stairs to her floor and she walked to her apartment, standing in front of the locked door while she retrieved her keys. The door opened slowly and she threw the keys on the kitchen counter, immediately going for a glass of water. She drank it in a few gulps, and as she set the glass down she saw something briefly in the glass, a brownish reflection. She quickly spun around and scanned the room, but there was nothing there. She looked back at the glass.

It's just my imagination, she thought, hardly convincing herself. She brushed her teeth and prepared for bed, getting into her pajamas. It took some clearing away of her plushies before she could pull the covers off to get in bed. She pulled the sheets over herself and checked her phone one last time. It was eight o'clock. Sleep came quickly once the light was off, but soon she found herself looking at her nightstand again. There was something at the end of the bed, she knew it, she could feel it. It wasn't just an inkling, it was a feeling so strong it made her sick.

"Judy?" it whispered. Her heart pounded, but she was frozen with fear. "Judy!" the voice said, stronger now, strangely excited. It was female, and hearing a happy voice made her feel slightly better. She heard pawsteps as whoever it was came to the side of her bed and sat down, the bed compressing to accommodate its new occupant.

"Who… who's there?" She asked.

"It's Kate, I've been trying to talk to you all day," the voice said.

"Huh- hoh- ok…" Judy stuttered, mortified. She felt a paw on her shoulder, another paw pulling back the comforter to reveal the giant rat sitting on her bed. The sight of the rather normal, albeit oddly large, mammal calmed her immensely. "K- Kate?" She asked the spirit.

"Yes, it's me, it's ok Judy. I think you're asleep or something, I couldn't talk to you before, or at least you didn't notice," the rat said. Judy felt her heart calming down and began to sit up, only to open her eyes and lurch forward in her bed, the covers still over her. She sat up and looked around the room, finding no trace of another mammal.

"Hello?" She called to no response. I must have been dreaming… but that was so… real, she thought. She lay back down and shuddered at the thought of a ghost sharing her body, but decided it would be better to just sleep. It had been a long day, and suggestion was a strong influence; for all she knew it was just her mind playing tricks. All she could hope for was to fall asleep again, even if it meant getting visited by a victim from beyond.

After a few minutes, she drifted off, quickly finding the smell of cookies, suddenly aware that she was in her home in the burrows. She was sat at a table in the yellow-walled kitchen, the window and glass door showing a bright, peaceful day outside. Nick was at the counter, checking on something in the oven.

"Judy," Kate's voice said. She turned to find the rat sitting at the table with her, the rat again being roughly the same size as Judy.

"Oh! Hey… I'm definitely dreaming now, Nick doesn't bake… especially not in my parent's oven," Judy said.

"Normally mammals don't bake lightbulbs either…" Kate said, watching as Nick pulled a tray of incandescent bulbs out of the oven. Judy turned to see and looked back to Kate.

"So it's one of those dreams," Judy said, smiling in embarrassment. She had never considered how embarrassing it would be to share a strange dream with someone.

"I'll be back in a bit Fluff," Nick said, walking out the door with a bulb in his oven mitt. Judy then realized that the rest of the house was missing, it was only the kitchen. She shook her head, trying to avoid thinking about it.

"Oh my god, can I just comment on how adorable it is that he calls you Fluff?" Kate said, making Judy's ears turn red.

"Oh stop it…" she said.

"It's cu!-" Kate started, interrupted by the lights in the house turning off and the outside becoming dark. They looked to the window to see the moon over the hill, the stars shining, and Nick screwing a lightbulb into a hole in the sky. They stared, stunned at the oddness before them.

"I swear this is not what my dreams are normally like," Judy said. The sun was back on and Nick pulled his paw away quickly, as if he had burned it.

"At least it's not a nightmare."

"Oh, just wait till Nick comes back in," Judy said with an eye roll. He was always excessively irritating in dreams for some reason, despite her being used to their banter. It was probably some deep-seated psychological thing that she would surely think about some other time.

"Don't jinx it, I want to talk to you still," Kate said, not wanting to have to experience a nightmare with Judy while trying to give her useful information.

"About what?" Judy asked.

"The killer, and where he took us."

"Oh, sweet cheese, really?!" Judy said, happily surprised.

"Yes! It's all coming back to me. This is what I think happened: Amy, Taylor, and I left a party late at night, and we passed by this alleyway, that's where he knocked us out. He's telepathic, he just, like, dragged us in and strangled us with his mind, real creepy stuff, he had Amy, like, suspended in the air. Anyway, once we were out he brought us to this old industrial building, it looked like some sort of factory to me but I'm not sure, I didn't get a good look at it. He killed me right after I woke up and the next thing I knew I was in the sewer, following my body and him.

"I was panicking for a while but I just kept following and tried to retrace it when you guys showed up. I was still kinda flustered at that point, I didn't really know what had happened, but it came back to me once you… uh… inhaled me, I guess. It gave me a moment to calm down."

"Well, it's good things are coming back. That's a lot of good information, that'll definitely help. What can you tell me about him?" Judy asked.

"Well, it's another rat but he's really weird looking, super skinny and gangly, with these wiry, spindly paws. He's maybe a bit taller than average but his back is super hunched, I bet if he stood up straight he'd be the tallest rat I'd ever seen. His snout is crooked and some of his teeth stick out, his fur is grayish and patchy… in essence, he's creepy as shit," she said.

"Jeez… well, at least we've got an easily identifiable mammal. Gosh, that must have been horrible… I'm sorry about everything that happened to you… you're so young…"

"It's… it's ok. I just… want to see my family again," she said, struggling with the words. She started crying and Judy frowned in sympathy, standing up to hug her.

"It's ok, we'll go see your family, we'll find a way for you to talk with them," Judy said, holding her close.

"Thank you," the rat said between sobs. A loud buzzing then filled the air, and Judy awoke to find herself in bed. She let the buzzing continue for a moment, too engrossed in her thoughts to silence the machine. She hit the button and stayed in bed, unable to just get up and go about her normal routine after a dream like that. It was all the more reason to get out of bed though. She was going to do Kate justice, come hell or high water.


	8. μακάριοι οἱ πραεῖς

**A/N: Another chapter! It has been a little while, more than I wanted but not more than last time. Since publishing the last chapter I have been feeling a lot better, I**** had been struggling with a rather severe bout of depression/bipolar disorder. I'm on a new medication now and I've taken a break from school, which so far it's working out really well, and I'm feeling really good. Hopefully this will update more frequently as I'm trying to spend my time off as productively as possible, including (and possibly most importantly) hobbies and fun things.**

**Anyway, enough of that, _enjoy!_**

* * *

The rabbit stood in her black suit, waiting in front of Nick's door. She had already texted him everything she learned and she was itching to get going. She'd already told the A3I and ZPD to be on the lookout for a new mural while they did more investigating, and she was hoping there wouldn't be one. Nick opened his door and stepped out in his black suit, his black sunglasses on. They nodded to each other and started walking down the hall.

"So, we're gonna check out that alley in Little Rodentia while we let Tanya get a team together?" Nick asked.

"Yep. And we're gonna respond to any new scenes if they find 'em," Judy said, calling the elevator.

"I like it."

"Can you still see Kate if you look at me?" She asked. He turned his attention to her and focused, watching as her face blurred slightly. He could just barely make out the rat, it wasn't clear like yesterday.

"Just a little. Wonder if I'm losing it…" he thought out loud. "Have you told Tanya about that dream?" he asked as they heard a ding, the elevator doors opening and the two entering soon after.

"I haven't… I probably should, maybe they've run into this rat before," she said, taking out her phone to call Tanya while Nick hit the button for the first floor. The feline picked up after a few rings but she didn't sound very awake.

_"This is Bug-Burga, may I take your order?"_ The snow leopard replied in a voice that could only be described as half-there.

"Uhh… Tanya?" Judy asked.

_"This line isn't for personal calls ma'am… wait, I'm not dreaming anymore, am I?" _Tanya groggily said, followed by some quiet shuffling as she looked at the screen of her phone. _"Oh, geez… sorry Judy, I was having a food service dream again… why are you calling so early?" _She asked, more curious than concerned.

"Early? Oh! Right, you aren't working… uhh… well, I had a dream last night where I saw Kate, but it felt like more than just a dream. I sat down and had a full conversation with her; she told me more about where she was and what the killer looked like," she said, glad that the elevator was there to provide some privacy.

_"Oh! That's great… wait, who?"_

"Kate."

_"..."_

"The rat from yesterday?"

_"Oh, yep, right, I knew that… huh, text me what you know and I'll forward it to James," _she said.

"Ok. Let us know when the team is ready."

_"Yeah, I-" _she started, cut off by a scream from somewhere else in the house, followed by a female's voice yelling her name. _"Oh shit, gotta go, see you later!" _Tanya said before hanging up.

"Woah," Judy said as the doors opened. They stepped out into the lobby.

"What?" Nick asked.

"I don't know, somebody was screaming in her house and she said she had to go," Judy said.

"Huh… you know, I think Clare has nightmares sometimes," Nick said.

"How do you know?" Judy asked. He squinted through his sunglasses at her, unsure how exactly he knew, but fairly sure it was for a reason he couldn't say in public.

"Ohhh…" Judy said, realizing that he likely wouldn't be able to say. They continued their walk to the precinct, getting more looks than usual in their special outfits. They had been seen in their A3I uniforms before, and the agency was quick to inform the public about the two's double-role status. Of course, that was done without mentioning that they're part of a team that is the only thing standing between the horrors of the supernatural world and mammals' everyday lives.

They arrived at the precinct and smiled as they walked in, Ben giving them a wink. They waved to him and continued their walk to the garage, avoiding being stepped on and greeting the many larger mammals in the building as they went. The door to the garage opened to reveal the perpetually cold and damp concrete structure and their pawsteps were drowned out by the sound of the garage's doors opening and closing. Comparatively massive police cruisers bustled about, finding their way out to the world or back to their spot.

They climbed into their own cruiser, Judy taking the driver's seat, and nodded to each other as Nick hit the button to put the car into A3I mode. They smiled as they listened to the lights retract and the license plate flip over, going from ZPD to GOVT. The windows instantly tinted and all of the markings on the outside faded to black.

"That will never get old," Judy said with a giant smirk.

"I'd hope not Fluff," Nick said, equally excited. They left the precinct into the colorful and busy city, which passed them as the pitch-black car weaved through the maze. They hadn't been in the tiny town since the nighthowler case, and Judy hoped nobody would recognize her. Of course, this time would be very different, as they had a passive goal, one that didn't require a high-speed chase. They had brought a small forensics kit with magnifying utilities, and they hoped it would be enough.

They parked just outside the gates to the tiny city within the city and stepped out of their cruiser. Judy went to the trunk and took out the kit while Nick climbed over the fence. She passed him the box before climbing over and they started moving, holding out their A3I IDs as they walked along the roads, towering over the buildings and their occupants. They watched their feet carefully as gasps of fright erupted below them. Judy kept an eye on her phone while they moved, Nick too large to risk moving freely without all of his attention on the ground.

"This should be it," Judy said as she looked over to a small gap between the tiny buildings. It might have been big enough for her to fit into but the instruments would do a better job and she didn't want to risk destroying anything. The alley was too dark to see into, even in the bright morning light, so Nick took out a flashlight.

"Bingo… a phone and some blood," Nick said after just a moment of scanning.

"Awesome, let's get some samples," Judy said, taking out a bottle of water and some q-tips. She dipped a cotton swab in the water and started to rub the tiny blood spot while Nick picked up the phone with a pair of tweezers.

"It's broken, I don't think it was just dropped, it's harder for these little things to break," he said as he put it in a bag.

"Well, she said he attacked them… do you see anything else in there?" Judy asked as she put the cotton swap in a small plastic tube. He bobbed his head around, trying to get a better look into the crevice.

"Nope, I think we got it all Fluff," he said as he stood up.

...

Amy was gone now, it had happened earlier. The blind rat was now left alone, cold and terrified in the dirty old building. It was impossible for her to imagine why anyone would do this to mammals, how anyone could be so cruel, how anyone could separate two mammals as they screamed for each other's lives. The scratches and cuts from Amy's claws still hurt, but it was the memory that was the most painful. Hearing and feeling as one of her best friends was pulled from her grasp. That was compounded by the terror of being without her vision.

She wanted her friends back. She wanted to see her family. She wanted to be warm and safe under a blanket in her home, but the only thing for her to do was to lay here, curled up on the floor and hope that her death wouldn't be painful. The cold, hard, dirty concrete below her was a terrible death bed, and the smell of old oil and rusted metal didn't change that. An all-encompassing blackness surrounded her and the only things that broke the utter silence were the occasional rumble of the floor from large vehicles and a distant siren or horn. But after the minutes and hours of silence, there was something else, a small noise echoing through the pervasive dark.

She curled up tighter, she knew what it was. It was the quiet shuffling of that creature that called himself a mammal. He was getting closer and she was trembling, holding her posture like never before. He made a grunting noise of some kind, as if to acknowledge her existence.

"I was in your position, you know," he said slowly

"Go away," Taylor said quietly, shuddering.

"No. You and your friends never went away. I am not going anywhere. Soon, though, you will go away and then you'll be free to rot in hell," he said with venom.

"No… you are going to rot, you maniac."

"After all I've been put through by you, by your friends, by theirs, by everyone, by society… I'm making this world right, I'm doing what I was destined by God to do."

"You're a monster…" Taylor said.

"How dare you… Do you know who I am? I, Taylor, am the son of God and I have returned to rid this world of sin. Purification starts with you and your friends. You will be ground to a pulp and painted as a sign of the peace that is to come to this world," he said. It had taken him years to realize his true place, and it took perhaps minutes after this discovery for his insanity to pervert his already corrupt thoughts into the twisted state they were now.

"My God would never do something like this… you came from the devil, you evil piece of shit!" She said. In response, he broke her neck.

…

She was standing next to Tanya outside a coffee shop when the sky turned a fiery orange. The wolf recoiled and watched as a blood-red web stretched between the buildings, swirling black clouds backlit by the fire in the sky. The ground started shaking and everyone was screaming and running for their lives. She heard Tanya's voice, it sounded strange and she couldn't hear what she was saying. The cat started to pull on her, trying to get her inside, but she kept staring at the web. It started to resemble a forest, and the terror overcame her. Clare woke up, looking around her room, the feeling of terror only growing stronger by the second.

She couldn't move, and Tanya's voice quietly resonated in her room down the hall, but it was hardly hers. There were paw steps in the hall, and she looked to her door to see a shadow rush by. She wanted to move and scream and yell but all she could do was look and listen, her mouth barely even forming words. Then, in a rush of strength, she screamed and she yelled Tanya's name.

_"Oh shit, gotta go, see you later! I'm coming Clare don't worry!" _The feline said as her pawsteps grew louder down the hall. She rounded the doorway to find Clare catching her breath, shaking in bed. "Aw, come here baby," she said, walking over to the bed and climbing onto it to give Clare a hug. "What happened?"

"I don't… I don't know, ih- it wasn't like my other dreams," she said, trying to slow her breathing.

"Deep breaths Clare, it's ok, it was just a dream," Tanya said. The wolf listened and took a few deep, albeit shaky, breaths, and was soon composed enough to talk, though she was still trembling in Tanya's arms.

"We were downtown, outside some kind of cafe or something, and the sky turned orange and filled with black clouds. Then this big web thing, a big red web, formed in between the skyscrapers and it turned into a forest, another forest. There was an earthquake too and you were trying to get me inside but I couldn't look away from the web," she said. Tanya frowned, not liking the mention of the forest again in such an extreme context. "You don't think it's another, like, thing do you? I don't want that to be the future…"

"I don't know, I don't think so… was there anything else?"

"When I woke up I couldn't move and I saw this thing running to your room, it was just a shadow," she said.

"Oh, that just sounds like regular old sleep paralysis," Tanya said bluntly.

"What?"

"Sleep paralysis. It's where you kinda half wake up and you can hear and see and whatnot but you can't move, people hallucinate too but not always. Apparently it always comes with like an overwhelming fear," Tanya said.

"Great, now I have more to worry about when I sleep," Clare said. Tanya patted her back a few times.

"It'll be ok. Just don't lay on your back, I think that can cause it… you should try medication," Tanya suggested, breaking the hug. Clare looked at the sheets.

"I don't know… these only started after what happened, I think I just need time," Clare said.

"You'll be ok," Tanya said, hugging her again and kissing the top of her head.


	9. Para Bellum

**A/N: Hey look! A more-timely-than-usual update! Hopefully this all makes sense, I feel like the first scene here might come out of nowhere, I didn't set it up as well as I wanted to. Who knows, I'll let you guys decide how I did here. We are getting closer by the second to catching this creep, and we know more about him too. Who knows what the future holds? (Lol, Clare does, apparently).**

**Anyway, _Enjoy!_**

* * *

The middle-aged fox sat at his desk, going over the water and electrical plans for a new hotel in downtown. He had already double-checked that the connections to the city's utilities were placed in suitable locations, now he had to check the material and energy flow in and out of the building to ensure the local infrastructure could handle it. The plans to light the entire outside of the half-kilometer tall building with LED lights was a bold one, but he didn't think it would cause any trouble. A knocking on his cubicle turned his attention away from his work, and his boss looked at him with a brief nod.

"The cops, well, actually, the agency asked for someone to check out a case they're on, they've got some creep killing rats and goin' through the sewer to paint walls with blood," the pig said.

"Jesus… you know that's like the last thing I expected to hear today," he said in response, the pig smiling and letting out a small chuckle.

"Believe me, I know, and it gets weirder! They were being really hush-hush about it, they don't want anyone talkin' about it apparently. They didn't even wanna tell me what was going on, I had to beg 'em and give 'em the old 'I ain't putting someone to work without knowing what work it is' kinda thing. They said there are some pretty specific instructions you gotta follow too."

"Oh god… this sounds like a mess, you can't give it to someone else?" The fox pleaded.

"Well I figured with your kid wanting to be in law enforcement I might as well, it might be kinda fun for you two but it's probably too secretive to even tell him... who knows, you wanna do it or not?" The pig asked.

"I guess it could be fun for Rodger… yeah, I'll do it," the fox said.

"All right, well, here ya go. Good luck Larry," the pig said, handing him a folder and leaving his cubical.

"Thanks," the fox said absentmindedly, confused by the fact that the folder was totally blank. He opened it and took out the contents, which was two pages. One was a letter with all of the formal language and symbols to indicate A3I origin, the other was a map. The letter gave directions to call an extremely long phone number upon receiving the folder and to swear to secrecy, the other a map with markings on various sewer access points.

He looked over the map and noticed a pattern almost immediately. All of the covers were access to the highest capacity sewer tunnels, tunnels that aren't easy to access. aside from the one in Little Rodentia, the covers weighed over two-hundred pounds each, and there were few mammals who could simply pick them up. But there was another pattern he noticed, he noticed it immediately; they were all within reach of the abandoned Hamstershire plastic processing facility. It was a building famous among civil engineers for the fact that it had direct access to the sewer for dumping its waste product.

The access point was made after they were told to stop dumping into the harbor, but the company eventually went out of business. Legal action was taken against it due to its malpractices, now it was just a decaying hunk of concrete and steel. Ironically, what used to be a facility famous for being morally bankrupt was probably being used by a serial killer. _How fitting,_ larry thought. He picked up his cell phone and dialed the number, the mammal on the other end picking up quickly.

_"Authorization?"_ A male voice asked.

"Uhhh… I'm a civil engineer, Larry Regnab, I was asked to look into a case," he said.

_"Oh, great! Are you on a cellphone or a landline?"_ The voice asked.

"Cellphone… why?"

_"They're more secure. Anyway, are you comfortable providing some insight on this case?"_

"Uh, yeah, actually I think I know where your guy might be."

_"No shit… I knew this would be a good idea. What have you found?"_ the voice said.

"Uh, I've got an old factory by Riverside Station, it's near the docks on 75th and Aqua… who are you?" Larry asked.

_"Special Agent James Miller, A3I. I can't tell you much about what I do, sorry."_

"Oh… well, nice to meet you, Agent Miller. I understand the secrecy thing, a lot of my friends are in defense engineering, they can't say shit about what they do," he said.

_"Yeah, we like our secrets here in the government,"_ James said.

"Yeah, ha! So what do I do now, you want help getting access or anything?"

_"Uh, well, actually, that's pretty much all we needed. Are you confident about the location?"_

"Uhhh, yeah, I'm… I'm actually fairly certain but, is there really nothin' else I can do?"

_"No, sorry. As you might be able to tell this is a highly secretive operation we've got right here, it took some convincing with my… colleagues to arrange this."_

"Oh… well, ok. I guess this is goodbye?"

_"Yeah, pretty much. I apologize it was so, uh, brief, but honestly, you don't want to have anything to do with this, it's horrible. Thank you again."_

"Yeah… no problem," he said, James hanging up. He set his cellphone down on his desk and thought for a moment. _What the fuck?_

...

They stood, waiting outside of a lab in the basement of the A3I headquarters, hoping that there would be more information from the phone and the blood they had found. Tanya had already texted them about Clare's new dream, which didn't help their anxiety. Tanya had said it could be "just a dream," but there was no way to tell. They would just have to hope for the best.

"What if we never catch this guy?" Judy asked as she paced.

"Oh come on Fluff, after all we've done? This guy ain't gettin away."

"Ugh, I know, it's just… we barely know what the suspect looks like and we have only one clue about where he is! By the time we figure out where he is, he'll be gone."

"We've only just started this investigation, we'll have a team of psychics lined up for us!.. worrying isn't like you, Carrots, what's the matter?"

"You're right, I think I'm just stressed out. I don't… I don't like the idea of a bunch of kids dying," she said. Her words hit Nick like a bucket of cold water. He knelt down and gave her a hug.

"It's ok Judy, we'll figure this out," he said. She gave a sigh and returned the hug.

"Thanks, Nick," she said. A voice interrupted their little moment.

"Oh! Uh… you guys wanna see what we got?" Doctor Frode asked, the two scrambling apart, flustered.

"Oh, yes, of course!" Judy said, starting to walk towards the arctic Fox, waving to Nick to follow her. The vulpine was the head of laboratories at the A3I headquarters, and she was one of the very few who were allowed to work closely with the Enigma program. They entered the lab with her and she guided them to a set of computers.

"So, the blood is from Taylor Panelli, a rat, age seventeen, the phone is hers too," the fox said.

"She was one of the mammals reported missing," Judy said.

"And the phone… well, the phone had some interesting footage on it. It seems like the device went into an emergency mode, it's a new feature, I can't be sure what set it off, it might have been… a lot of things. Anyway, what's interesting is that this mode turns on the front and back cameras, and the back camera caught something," she said with a smile on her muzzle. She opened a file on the computer and played the video.

In the corner was an ear, likely Taylor's, lit by the light from the phone. Soon her body lifted to reveal her face, blood coming out of her snout and staining the corners of her eyes. Her body levitated away, sinking into the blackness of the night. A few seconds of silence passed before an odd-looking creature glanced down at the phone, crunching and static following soon after.

"That was him, wasn't it?" Judy asked.

"I'd say, looked just like what Kate described," Nick said.

"Sounds like this is confirming what you already knew…"

"No, actually, we just had a vague description. Can you run a search for facial recognition?"

"Well, that's the other thing… we did, and it came up with nothing," the fox said.

"Damn…" Judy said. Her phone then rang, and she took it out to see that it was James. "Oh crap… hello?"

_"Hey, Judy, I got a civil engineer to look at the murder map, he gave us a building and he's pretty sure it's right,"_ James said.

"You're kidding… well, let's go!" Judy said.

_"We're bringing a SWAT team, but I'll pick you up, where are you?"_

"We're in the labs, we'll head to the garage."

_"Great. See you in a few,"_ James said, hanging up.

"That was James, he said he asked a civil engineer for advice and he got a building to search," Judy said.

"Woah! Well how about that, Fluff, we'll have this guy in no time!" Nick said, making her smile. They rushed to the stairs and sprinted up the three flights to the next floor, the underground garage. James stepped out of the elevator as they opened the door.

"So where is this place," Judy asked.

"It's an old factory on 75th and Aqua, by the docks," James said, leading them to his car.

"Are we gonna get snowball and friends or just us?" Nick asked.

"Just us. Tanya said we might not be able to catch him, so she's still working on getting a team together. Also, and don't take this lightly, she said to have your weapons out and shoot at first sight, so, we're there to kill this asshole, not arrest him."

"Wait, what?" Judy said, stopping. James sighed.

"Look, it's too dangerous to try and pawcuff a powerful telekinetic, he can kill us and the entire tactical unit much faster than we can do that," he said. Judy looked at him and folded her arms. "You aren't acting as a ZPD officer right now Judy, you are an A3I agent, and as your superior, I'm telling you to shoot to kill, ok? I'm not arguing about this," he said, starting to walk again. She wasn't ready to argue either, she was just hesitant, but her hesitation was apparently not appreciated by James.

"I'm sorry, it's a habit I guess," Judy said, though she was still unsure about killing before arresting.

"I… I'm sorry for getting angry like that but… good mammals have died because they didn't listen to that very order, and when Tanya gives it, it's serious."

"Ok… I trust you," Judy said.

"Thank you. We'll have to wait a bit for the SWAT team, but it should only be a bit."

…

Nick and Judy sat in the back of the relatively massive car, James in the front. They were waiting for the sign to move. It had been twenty minutes by the time the swat van pulled up behind them. Without a word, all three exited the car and stood in front of one of the large garage doors. A bear in heavy gear stuck a cable of explosive to the door, outlining a hole big enough for a few team members and the agents to move through.

At the same time, all around the building, charges were being set. Within minutes, James was told it was ready. He looked around the street, it was barricaded and there was nobody on the sidewalks. It was clear.

"Let's go, you count down, it's your team," he said to the wolf in armor.

"Alright guys, shoot to kill, you are looking a disfigured male rat," he said. "3… 2… 1!"

With a bang, every door and half the windows in the building were blown in, a parade of mammals with powerful weapons and heavy armor rushing in. James led the fox and rabbit while the swat members spread throughout the building. The large, open space was cleared in seconds, the surrounding stairwells and overhead rooms cleared soon after.

"I've got a body over here!" Someone shouted. Judy sprinted, outpacing Nick and James as she rushed towards the scene. She skidded to a stop, her pistol in paw, and looked at the rat on the floor. She was covered in blood, but she wasn't dead, Judy could hear her breathing.

"Get an ambulance, she's alive!" She shouted as she knelt next to the tiny mammal. The swelling in her neck was a clear indication of an injury there. "I think she's got a broken neck," she said as Nick knelt next to her.

"Who is it?" He asked. He then noticed the blood on her snout and eyes. "Shit, it's Taylor…"

"At least we got to one of them… I hope it's not too late," Judy said. There was nothing the two could do, a neck injury was beyond both their level of training and their current capability. The three agents stood and crouched near the small mammal while the swat team left. James stood outside to lead the paramedics when they arrived, and Judy rode with Taylor to the hospital. Nick stayed with James to discuss their options.

"Judy was right… he was here, but not when we were. So what now?"

"We need a forensics team, first off. Once the scene is cleaned and checked we could set up a trap, but odds are he'll have heard about the raid and he won't be coming back."

"So we're back to square one?"

"It depends, if they find a stray hair that happens to be his, we're in good shape. Also, if that rat is still alive and able to talk, she'll know a hell of a lot more than we do."

"And there might be some DNA from him on her too," Nick said.

"It's possible… tell Judy to look for hairs that aren't her color."

"Good thinking," Nick said, taking out his phone. James sighed, looking over the building again. "You ok?"

"I just don't like it when things this big get away."

...

Judy started looking for stray hair the moment she got the text, and so far she wasn't having luck. The difficulty was either due to the lack of hair, or the movement of the ambulance, and she had no way of knowing which.

"What do you think the odds are she'll be talking any time soon?" She asked the paramedic.

"I'm not a doctor, but I'd say it's a broken vertebra with an intact spinal cord, if slightly injured. She'd be dead if it was severed but conscious if her neck was fine. I think she'll be ok, but I don't know if you'll find her conscious today," the EMT said, the badger giving the rat a shot of a muscle relaxant to prevent her from injuring herself.

"Well, that's good... It would be nice to ask her some questions though," Judy said.

"Well I'm not a doctor, just a first responder, could be better could be worse… speaking of which, what are you? You look really familiar…"

"A3I operating agent, normally I'm ZPD but I'm on a case. Officer Judy Hopps," Nick said.

"Oh! I knew I recognized you. Working with the A3I huh? That's an honor. Bet you can't even tell me about the case, can you?"

"No, sorry," Judy said, smiling. The rest of the ride was relatively quiet, Judy spending most of it looking at Taylor's injuries, wonder how she got them. Just before they made it to the hospital she received a call from the A3I.

"Hello?"

_"Hello, Agent Hopps. We've got a camera feed that is showing images related to your current case, are you in a position to speak?"_ a male voice asked.

"Yeah, what do you have?"

_"A camera on Tajunga and 25th is showing a community building with a forest painted in red, we were told to look for this sort of thing and contact you."_

"Rainforest district… yeah, it's good you called. I'll let the rest of my team know. You said a community building on Tajunga and 25th?"

_"Yep. Good luck Agent Hopps."_

"Thanks, bye," Judy said, hanging up. She immediately texted Nick and Tanya, Nick telling James. Looks like Clare was right, she thought.

"I've got a friend near there, should I be scared?" The medic asked.

"No, definitely not. The case is more… more like a vandal than a typical serial killer… you'll see it in the news, probably."


	10. Si Vis Pacem

**A/N: Things are truly ramping up. We are in the final few chapters! I think there will be 3 more, I'm not sure, but the climax is soon to come! Hopefully this chapter was worth the wait, it took a while because I was just having a hard time writing it, who knows why. I'm also hoping that difficulty did not result in a lower quality product! Please review and let me know how I did!**

**Without further ado, _Enjoy!_**

* * *

The eggs were almost ready. After the trials and tribulations of cooking with one paw, she had achieved what was less than mastery, but it was enough to get by. Clare was waiting at the table, fully recovered from her nightmare, sniffing as the smell of toast filled the house. The two predators were determined to have a nice breakfast before the crazy day ahead. The first step was to go to the Triburrow Penitentiary to retrieve Tamela Amon, a psychometric caracal. The next was to retrieve their own hometown's psychics and experts: Bucky, Pronk, and Yax. The news played on the small television in the kitchen, Tanya listening while Clare ignored it, on her phone.

But a line tore her attention away from the device: _in other news, our social media team noticed an unusual spike in reports of supernatural activity,_ Fabienne said with a slight eyebrow movement at the mention of 'supernatural activity.' The wolf's ears perked up and she glared at the screen, Tanya doing the same.

_"The term 'ghost' is trending on almost all major social media sites right now, and we have a psychologist here who specializes in paranormal experiences to comment. Doctor Brownleaf, what would you say is going on here?"_

_"Well, Fabienne, it is not uncommon to see imitations of a paranormal experience after one is described. What appears to be happening is likely related to mass hysteria in a way, one case creates another until you have an epidemic of ghost stories on your paws."_

_"Interesting. And what could have caused this?"_

_"Well, it could be anything from a commercial to simply random chance…" _the bear continued.

"Oh shit," Clare said.

"What?" Tanya asked.

"That doesn't sound good," she said, looking at Tanya with the sort of fear that only the unknown could bring about.

"I- I don't know if it really means anything, Clare," Tanya lied. She knew exactly what it meant, but it was something she would have to confirm with Yax and Tamela before she was sure. Either way, it was not something she wanted Clare to know about.

"Really?"

"Yeah, we see trends like this all the time. This might be a big one, but eh, I wouldn't think too hard about it," Tanya said. It was a fair excuse. The counter started buzzing and she turned around to pick up her phone. "Hey, what's up?" She asked, sticking the device between her shoulder and cheek.

_"I want to get a professional opinion about the sewer stuff, I've been thinking about sending some info to a civil engineer,"_ James said.

"Really? I don't think that's a great idea…"

_"What if it gets us a good lead?"_

"But what if it gets a smart person heavily interested in a secret operation?"

_"Ugh… I know, but we could stop this right now, or at least save someone. Even in a worst-case scenario, I don't think anything will be exposed."_

"Stupid eggs…"

_"What?"_

"I'm cooking eggs."

_"Oh…"_

"Anyway, I don't know… what are you gonna tell them?"

_"I'll probably just say we have a suspect using sewer access points and give them the locations."_

"Ok… I guess that'll work, let me know how it goes."

_"I will. I'm also putting in a request to the A.I. team to look for more murals."_

"Good thinking, security cameras could pick something up."

_"That's what I'm hoping. See ya later tawn-tawn," _James said.

"See ya," she said, smiling. She hadn't seen him in a while and was starting to miss him and his nicknames. She had always wondered if the two of them had some sort of chemistry together.

"Tanya," Clare said.

"Huh?"

"Stop stirring the eggs…"

"Oh, oopsie! Got distracted," she said. She poured out equal portions of the scrambled eggs onto two plates and brought them over to the table. They almost immediately dug in, not even speaking until Tanya was on her second piece of toast.

"So, I'm gonna go the TriBurrows Penitentiary to get Tamela, while I'm doing that, you'll get Yax, Bucky, and Pronk and you bring them to the house. I'll be back a little after you come back. Once we have Tamela we can have Nick and Judy over too," she said.

"Sounds like a plan to me… I'm excited to see Tammy, we haven't talked in a long time."

…

The helicopter ride had been less than smooth so far, but she was more worried about her puppy on the ground in Zootopia. She knew Clare was a good driver but she didn't know how she would handle the three impossible ungulates. Bucky and Pronk constantly yelled to drown out the voices in their heads and Yax was just generally incompetent. However, she was on her way to get the most powerful - and potentially most dangerous - of the group. Tamela was a psychometer they had discovered years earlier after she killed Clare's grandfather, Daniel Blakesley.

Clare had hardly been phased by the death, she had always hated the disgusting mammal that was her grandfather, but she _was_ surprised when Tamela was a suspect. The caracal was a friend of hers, a high school peer had introduced the two. She was almost ten years older but had a hard time connecting with adults her age due to her 'unique' personality. She had never told Clare about her abilities, even leading up to and after the murder. The cat had hidden her true knowledge of the paranormal until her sentencing when she broke and started speaking about demons on the witness stand.

She was sentenced to life despite pleading insanity. The court ruled that she had the possibility of parole and release if she was confirmed by a doctor to be mentally sound. Tanya and James had partially intervened, testing her for psychometric abilities and secretly concluding that she was capable of psychometry beyond anything they had seen before. There was only so much they could do, however, since the A3I pulling a mammal out of a high profile murder trial would undoubtedly draw more attention than the Enigma program needed.

Tanya would never forget the day she tested Tamela and she revealed the leopard's entire family lineage, including unofficial and even unknown relationships, all the way back to one of the first mayors of Zootopia. It was astounding, the gift the cat had, but what Tanya never knew was where it came from. Maybe now that they were on the case of another powerful telepath she would find some answers.

"We're approaching for landing!" A boar in air force attire yelled, competing against the sound of the helicopter despite having a headset. She gave a thumbs up in response and felt the aircraft touch down only seconds later. The helicopter door opened and the suited snow leopard stepped out, using her good arm to hold on as she made the jump. A bison stood, waiting to greet his guest.

"Albert, good to see you!" Tanya said.

"I see the spooks are back to steal my inmates," the old-timer said in a voice as strong as steel.

"Yeah, Tamela again."

"You guys never tell me what you want with her," he said as they approached the gate. Tanya turned to him and gestured for him to get closer.

"She's a psychic medium," Tanya said, the term psychometer not common enough to bother with.

"Wait, what?"

"Yes, they're real. Don't say a damn thing, got it?" She said, slightly stern.

"Yes, ma'am!" He said, too honored to be given such information to consider her tone rude. "I never would have thought it," he said as they entered the cell blocks.

"Yeah, there's weird stuff out there," Tanya said as they climbed the stairs to the higher cell blocks.

"I'd imagine I already used my question for the day, but I gotta ask what you did to your arm."

"I fell with a flamethrower on my back because I stepped on a rake, my leg got fucked up too but I made a brace that lets me walk," she said. He only then realized the clinking of the metal prosthetic on the concrete steps.

"Sounds like fun," he said, sarcastic.

"Only a little," she replied. They started walking down the hall to cell five-o-two, and she felt something. She stopped and the warden stopped after her, looking at her with concern.

"What's goin on?" He asked.

"I don't know…" she shook her head "don't worry about it."

"Ok…" The warden said slowly. They kept walking and she felt it again, like she was suddenly aware of a presence in front of her. She had a good idea of what it was, and why it was happening, and her anticipation grew as she approached Tamela's cell. When she stepped in front of the bars the caracal was already holding on to the iron rods, looking her right in the eye.

"We have to go, now," the small cat said to the big cat.

"I'm inclined to agree," Tanya said. She had never been psychic before, and between the strange abilities around her and the increase in supernatural events, she was sure of her hypothesis. She turned to the warden. "I'll bring her back within the week," she said, not even asking permission to bring her out of the facility.

"Well, do what you gotta do. I'll see you two in a few days I guess," he said.

"Thank you," Tanya said as the warden unlocked the door. He was going to put the cat in pawcuffs but Tanya waved him off. "Don't need those. She'll behave."

"I supposed you probably could handle her with one arm and one leg anyway," he joked. She smiled.

"Probably, yeah."

…

The wolf took a deep breath. She really did not want to be seen walking into the naturalist club. But she had to do this, Yax was going to be vital to stopping this maniac. That was according to Tanya; Clare had no idea who this mammal was. She expected some sort of mystic genius and she was in for a hell of a surprise.

She opened the large wooden door to the dark and decorated building, walking through the bead doorway to emerge into the damp stone hall. The walls and alcoves were decorated with crystals and artifacts and at the end of the hall was a meditating yak, humming. She felt totally out of place in her tee-shirt, jeans, and Tanya's suit jacket. On top of that, now she would have to disturb the yak's meditation and she had no idea how to go about that. She was resigned to the fact that this would be an uncomfortable experience. She approached the altar.

"Hi," she said meekly, waving a paw. He hummed. "Hello?" She said again. He sneezed and it startled her into a yelp, which then startled Yax and made him open his eyes.

"Oh hey, didn't see you there!" He said. She caught her breath and tried to bring her confidence back.

"Yeah, uh, hi."

"Are you a new member?"

"Oh, no, no, I… uh… I'm here for you," she said. Yax looked at her like she had three heads.

"Uh, like, what is it you need me for?"

"I'm with Tanya, from the A3I, she said we need you, urgently, so I'm picking you up," Clare said. He scrutinized her for a moment.

"Ok, let me just get Dan," He said. She watched, and she stopped watching, as he stood and walked to the doors. She knew he would be naked, she didn't know why she looked, she simply didn't want to see that at the moment. After a few minutes of clearing the image out of her head, Yax came back in with a wolf, who, obviously, was also naked. She could feel her ears turning pink and her face flush. _Why am I embarrassed, he's the naked one… _she thought, looking every which way to avoid eye contact.

"Well I'll see you later Dan," Yax said casually as he walked towards Clare in his usual shuffle.

"See ya bro. And hey, you come back any time babe," Dan offered politely. She felt like she just had a bucket of worms dumped on her head.

"Oh, god, ew," she said without thinking. Dan had a slightly shocked expression, and she realized her mistake. "I mean, not, like, ew to you, I'm just not interested in the whole... naked, thing… sorry."

"Oh, yeah that's ok, don't worry about it," Dan said, smiling again.

"Oh I gotta get my pants," Yax realized. Clare could feel the heavens shining down upon her at the sound of that sentence. The yak kept a pair of shorts in case he had to leave the building; the police had made it very clear to him that he had to wear at least pants outside. He left to his bedroom and returned moments later with a pair of cargo shorts. _Thank god…_

Half an hour later they were, unknown to Clare, in front of Judy's old apartment building. She took Yax with her to floor three and made her way to room three-fourteen, where yelling and arguing could be heard through the door. _What the hell have I gotten myself into here,_ Clare thought. As she got closer the arguing stopped, instead a quieter whisper could be heard, and Clare knocked on the door. Moments later it opened, the two ungulates looking at the wolf and yak with concern.

"What do you need us for?" Bucky asked. Before Clare could even say, he stopped her. "Oh… Pronk we better go."

"And follow those spooks again? I don't wanna do that Bucky!" Pronk said. Again, before Clare could put her thoughts into words, she had changed his mind. "Ugh, fine, if it's that bad we can come with, but don't expect us to cooperate with any funny business… Ok, deal," Pronk said. It was interesting, not having to speak her thoughts to communicate with them. The two left their apartment and locked the door, trailing Clare and Yax as they took the stairs to the first floor. They argued as they descended, yelling at each other to shut up for reasons that Clare wasn't sure she would ever know.

They quieted down slightly as they got outside. All four got into Tanya's car and Clare started the engine, pulling out into the street. As soon as the car was moving it was back to usual.

"You shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

"Hey! Guys!" Clare said, getting them to quiet down for a moment. "So you guys are-?"

"Yeah, what does it matter to you?" Bucky replied, interrupting her before she could say 'Telepathic.' "Oh… well… yeah… yeah, I guess we could help you. Here's this," Bucky said. Suddenly an image flashed in her mind, it was Tanya.

"I got that… but let's save the-"

"Teaching for when you aren't driving, yeah," Pronk said. After a few moments of silence, it was back to the arguing and Yax was meditating.

…

Clare had almost lost it by the time they made it to Tanya's home and luckily Tanya made it home soon after to relieve her of babysitting duty. The big cat stepped in the door with Tamela and Clare smiled. She hadn't seen the caracal in years.

"Hi," Clare said. The cat waved shyly.

"It's been so long…"

"I know… how have you been?"

"Very bored, but, the other prisoners are nice to me. I have a few friends, I've always been good at picking out the good ones," she said, smiling. Her ability had its uses. While the two were reacquainting Tanya brought Yax into the kitchen and spoke quietly.

"Tamela and I are worried about a collapse," she said.

"Woah… a full-on crossover?" He replied.

"Yes. What do we do?"

"Well we gotta stop whatever's causing it," he said in a near whisper.

"I think I know what it is; it's a powerful telekinetic, but we can't find the guy."

"And that's why you need all of us," he said, realizing what he was really doing.

"Yes. Clare, Judy, and Nick have abilities that they can't control, they need training. Clare, I think, is Clairvoyant, psychometric and telepathic, Nick is Psychometric, more so than Clare, and telepathic, and Judy is a conduit, maybe more."

"Huh… you know, if Clare's clairvoyant we should hold a seance with her, that might give us some good tips," he said. Tany let out a relieved sigh, her shoulders relaxing.

"Ok," Tanya said, feeling relieved that they had a plan. Her phone buzzed and she took it out to find a text from Judy saying that there was another vandalism in the rainforest district. She was right, the wolf did have clairvoyant abilities. Clare entered the kitchen moments later.

"Should I get Nick and Judy over?" She asked Tanya.

"Yes. I just got a text from Judy saying there was a new painting in the rainforest district, so you were right. Yax and I found something to do while Nick, Judy, and James work their way over here," she said as she went back into the living room, past Clare.

"And what is that?"

"We're going to hold a seance."


	11. Sum Quod Eris

**A/N: Another chapter! We're getting close to the end, it might even be the next chapter! Big thanks to Liar, Spelter, and Dakzoo for beta reading this chapter.**

**Anyway, _Enjoy!_**

* * *

Judy waited patiently in the hospital, hoping for good news from the doctors. The minutes ticked by and she grew more anxious by the second. Taylor was apparently in rough shape but the rabbit needed, urgently, to talk with the rat. Every moment that passed was a moment closer to Judy losing hope, but a small rabbit in a white coat soon approached her.

"Um, Miss…" the rabbit started, not sure how to address her mammalian counterpart.

"Agent Hopps," Judy said, figuring it would be more fitting given her suit.

"Ah, Agent Hopps, I have some good news and some bad news. The good is that Taylor is alive and will likely make a full recovery, the bad news is that she is not conscious right now and I think she needs some rest," she said, holding her clipboard close.

"I see… you know, she might have evidence on her, could I still see her? And her clothes?" Judy asked.

"If you need to, yes, but try not to disturb her. I'll have a nurse bring you her clothes," the doctor said, leading her to the small room. The rat was laying in the slightly oversized bed, connected to an IV and a small mask around her muzzle. The doctor left to treat other patients.

Judy could feel her presence in the room like she was standing next to a warm fireplace. She had never felt it before, and her first thought was that the rat was slowly leaving her body to exit this mortal plane. She doubted herself; she thought it was only a moment of panic brought on by her experience with Kate. But her suspicions were soon confirmed as the heart rate monitor slowed in its beeping. The rat was quietly wheezing.

She knelt next to the bed and pressed the button on the arm to call for help, feeling the warmth of her presence slowly fade. A quiet 'no' escaped her lips and she thought for a moment. _Maybe if I could absorb Kate's soul I could somehow keep hers in,_ she thought_._ She concentrated on the rat and tried to imagine holding something inside the mammal. Her breathing stopped and Judy stopped with her, panicked. She took a deep breath to calm herself and Taylor breathed with her. She took another breath and the rat followed, her heart rate increasing. It felt more like she was controlling the rat's breathing, but how, she wasn't sure. The rat wheezed, snored, and gurgled heavily with each breath, but it gave the nurses enough time to make it in.

"What happened?" The nurse, an otter asked. He had Taylor's clothes in his paws.

"Her heart rate slowed down and her breathing is strained," Judy said. The nurse looked at the rat and gasped immediately.

"We need to get her intubated immediately," he said under his breath, setting the clothes on the bed. The rat's neck was clearly swollen.

"I can help, get the tube, I'll stay with her," Judy said. She was trained for emergency intubation at the academy and, while she had never performed it, she would rather try it than wait for Taylor to die. The nurse rushed back in with a pawful of small tubes, Judy taking the guide and carefully inserting it into the small mammal's mouth. She felt the tough region and poked at it a few times before getting through, the rat now breathing through what was practically a straw. The bunny then took the larger tube and placed it over the smaller, stiffer tube, feeding it in until it was past the blockage, then removed the smaller tube and the nurse got to work hooking up the tube to the ventilator.

"Good work," he said, panting lightly once it was done.

"Thanks," she replied, also panting. "That was scary."

"You can say that again."

"That was sca-" Judy stopped herself. "Stupid joke, I'm sorry… my partner must be rubbing off on me," she said.

"Heh, don't worry, dumb jokes are good when you've got adrenaline," he said. The doctor then walked in, flustered.

"What happened?" She asked.

"The patient was having breathing problems from swelling in her neck, so we intubated her," the nurse replied quickly.

"Oh, I'll have to look at that…" the doctor said, walking over to Taylor. The nurse scratched his head.

"Well, I guess that's figured out… I brought her clothes for you by the way, uh..."

"Agent Hopps," Judy said.

"Oh! Agent Hopps… what do you do exactly?" The nurse asked.

"Well, I can't tell you what I do with the A3I, but I also work with the ZPD as Officer Hopps," she replied.

"Oh, I recognize that name! Officer Wilde is your partner, right?"

"Yes," Judy said with a giggle.

"Funny, I used to know him. He definitely made stupid jokes, that guy was a snark if there ever was one…"

"Yeah, he sure is," Judy said. _He really does know everybody._

"Well, I guess I better leave you to your work."

"Thanks," Judy said, the otter leaving the room. She immediately went to the clothes at the end of the bed, carefully picking through the shirt and pants, looking for any sign of a stray hair that wasn't Taylor's.

"Muh," a small sound came from Taylor. Judy's attention went straight to the young rat with the doctor leaned over her. Judy quickly realized it couldn't have been her. She wouldn't be able to make any noise at all with that tube in place.

"Was that you?" Judy asked the doctor.

"No… what did you hear?" The doctor asked.

_"Help!"_ The small, high-pitched voice said. It was clearly coming from the rat, but she wasn't moving her lips. Judy could hear her thoughts. She decided to try replying in thought, moving closer to the small mammal. The doctor stared quizzically as Judy crouched next to the bed and looked at the rat. _It's ok, you're in a hospital now, you're safe, _she thought, hoping the rat could hear as well

_"My neck… my neck hurts, somebody help me!"_ Her voice said again. Judy went for the safe option.

"It's ok, you're in a hospital, you're safe," she said aloud.

"Hopps what…"

_"Are you a doctor? What's wrong with my neck?"_

"I'm, I'm not a doctor, I'm an agent with the A3I, we rescued you. Your neck is broken but you'll recover, ok?" She said. The doctor was now convinced that Judy was insane.

_"Oh god… why can't I see?"_

"It's ok Taylor… your eyes are closed… you might be asleep," Judy said.

"What the hell is going on Agent Hopps?

"Uh… close the door and let me explain." Judy said.

"O-kay…" the doctor said, walking to the door and closing it.

"This is official business now," Judy said, much more serious. "I am working on a case where multiple individuals, including myself, have acquired psychic abilities. I was communicating with Taylor psychically, and you can't tell anybody about what you saw or what you just heard, got it?"

_"What!?" _Taylor asked.

"It's ok Taylor," Judy said. "Do you understand?"

"You're serious aren't you?"

"Very."

"Jeez… I mean yeah, I won't talk but… woah."

"I know, it's kinda scary, but we've got a team that deals with this stuff so don't worry. Give me your full name quick," Judy said, taking out her phone.

"Can I ask why?"

"You will be getting financial compensation for your discretion," Judy said, smirking.

"Oh, that's not so bad… I'm Dr. Sarah Lavinia Cotton," the rabbit said.

"Ok, I'll let the financial mammals know soon. Now I've gotta get some more info from her, so if you could skedaddle that would be great."

The doctor looked like she wanted to say something but instead, she left, closing the door behind her. Judy looked back to the rat and knelt next to the bed again.

"Are you still there?" Judy asked.

_"Yeah… I'm scared."_

"It's ok, you'll be ok. I have to know what happened though, did you see him?" She asked.

_"No. I was blind from the moment I woke up after he took us. He got us in an alleyway, I don't know how we got into that building, but Amy… Amy told me it was an old factory or something… Amy is dead, isn't she?"_

"I… I think so, I'm sorry," Judy said.

_"Oh god… oh god…"_

"I'm sorry Taylor," Judy said, putting her paw over the smaller mammals paw. "I can let you talk to Kate though, if you want."

_"She's alive?"_

"No, but, I can… kinda channel her I guess?"

_"Oh… ok…" _Taylor said. Judy wasn't sure how she was going to communicate with two mammals in her head, but she could always try. _Do you have anything to say, Kate? _Judy thought.

"_All I have to say to Taylor is 'stay on your tops,'" _Kate said. _"It's an inside joke."_

"Oh… well, Kate just wanted to say 'stay on your tops,'" she relayed with a smile. The rat didn't reply for a moment. "Taylor?"

_"Oh, I just realized I can't, like, laugh in my thoughts. It's a joke, our coach told us that one day, she slipped with her words, we thought it was just hilarious,"_ Taylor said. Judy smiled, she could feel tears welling in her eyes.

…

The long wooden table was cleared, the six mammals sat all around, Clare at the head with a candle in front of her. Tamela sat at the opposite end, Bucky and Pronk on her left side, Tanya and Yax on her right. They all held each other's paws and hooves, and Tamela started the ritual.

"Friends, put your energy together, give it to Clare so that she can see," she said. The others took on a concentrated look as they tried to do as the cat asked. "She can see and know all once she has your help," she continued. The candle in front of Clare flickered, unknown to the mammals around it. Clare's eyes opened, but she didn't see the room around her.

She was on the street, in front of a house in Little Rodentia, the address was forty-two seventy-two, but she couldn't see the street name. She was the same size as the tiny rodents around her, the toy house in front towering over her. Clare turned around to find herself next to Tanya again, just like her dream, mammals running in all directions as the ground shook. The sky was a fiery orange with black clouds and creatures - demons, she was sure of it - crawled out from cracks in the ground. The web of blood between the buildings was still there but it was no longer a forest, just a spiderweb of red tieing the buildings together. The wolf let go of Tanya and Pronk and shook her head, coming back to the world.

"Forty-two seventy-two," she said quietly, not wanting to forget it but deeply disturbed.

"What?"

"I saw a house in Little Rodentia, forty-two seventy-two, I don't know what street, and I saw… I saw what I saw in that dream, Tanya."

"You saw the earthquake?"

"Yes… and… and… demons came up, out of the ground… don't lie to me Tanya, is that what is going to happen?" She asked. Tanya looked at her with her mouth open in a grimace.

"It's possible if we don't stop him that some sort of crossover between the spiritual realms could happen…" Tanya said.

"Ok… so what do we do?"

"We go to that house… or, well, we get someone to… who will, like, fit in the house," Tanya said.

"Who?" Clare asked.

"Agent Agouti, he's a mouse, I'll call him right now."

…

Agent Agouti sat at his desk, continuing to go over a set of papers detailing a case of misconduct among officers of precinct fifteen. He was sick of the case; the officers clearly just had a little too much fun at a bar and forgot that they were in their uniforms. There was no drunk driving, no fights, no…

The phone rang. His ears perked up and he looked at the ID. _Agent Vecher, oh no..._

"Hello?" He asked in his squeaky voice.

"_Hi, Agent Agouti?"_

"Yeah, how's it goin Tanya?"

"_Oh, not bad, I need a favor though."_

"Oh brother, I'm not sure if I'm ready for a favor."

"_Zootopia is at stake."_

"I mean, I didn't say _no_, I just… forget it, I'll do it, what do you need?"

"_I just need you to check on a house in Little Rodentia."_

"That's all?"

"_Yes, we need to know if a suspect is in this house."_

"Should I bring a gun?"

"_Uh… yes? Maybe?"_

"So definitely yes, got it."

"_Right, so, we need you to find it first, the number is forty-two seventy-two, but we don't have a street name."_

"Ok. Why exactly do you need to go to this house?"

"_It's very complicated, I'll explain once we meet in person. I'm heading to the headquarters, see you in around fifteen minutes."_

"Ok, see you then."

…

Tanya hung up the phone and turned to Clare.

"You'll have to stay home with these guys, I gotta go do this," she told the canine.

"Ok, I guess…" Clare said, unsure. Tanya gave her a hug and a pat on the back.

"It'll be ok," she whispered. Clare nodded and Tanya kissed her cheek. "I'll be back later. Try to get Judy and Nick, hell, get James over here too."

"Ok… see you later," Clare said.

…

James put on the nitrile gloves he had been handed and nodded to Nick who was doing the same. They were going to assist the forensics team in the investigation of the building, and they were eager to look for stray hairs or pieces of skin from a bare paw, anything that could give them information about the killer.

"I'll check the main floor, I have a hunch there'll be something in the control room up there though, why don't you look in there," James said to Nick.

"Got it," Nick said. He started climbing the old, dusty stairs to the equally old and dusty control room. The windows that protected the overseers from the hellish environment of the plant had broken long ago, shattered glass littering the floor and the panels of buttons. Nick was immediately reminded of the power plant in Deerbrook, thank god this time he didn't have to run from a congealed meat monster. He took out his phone and used the flashlight to scan the floor, hoping to find any kind of evidence.

He crouched down near a small whitish speck. He could have sworn he saw something, maybe it was just a reflection from the broken glass. He heard a crunch as if a large mammal was stepping on the broken glass right next to him. The fox whipped around only to find that he was still alone. He turned back to the speck, spooked but unshaken, and found a glowing pair of eyes looking at him from across the dim and dusty room.

"Hello?" He asked the void. The unmoving pair sat in the dark space below the desk, where a chair would normally be. A voice to his side startled him.

"Nick?" James asked. He took a moment to catch his breath and looked back to the desk to find the space below it empty.

"Oh man, you scared me Horndog, I thought there was someone in the room with me and then you go saying my name," Nick said, still reeling.

"Someone in here with you? We just cleared it with a swat team…"

"Must have … just been a ghost, I guess," Nick figured. He was in an old, abandoned factory and he had psychic powers, so it was the only logical conclusion for the fox.

"Yeesh… I hate ghosts, Tanya is used to them but not me. I came up here to tell you we got something downstairs, why don't we get outta here and check it out."

"Sounds better than sticking around," Nick said. They started descending the stairs. "So, how do you get used to this stuff?"

"What? Enigmas? It's always something new, you never really get used to it," James replied.

"Great…" Nick said. They finished descending the stairs and made it to the plant floor, where a group of mammals was huddled around a tablet.

"What do the results say?" James asked.

"We're not sure, it doesn't match any mammal in Zootopia. It's mostly rat, and we think we have the mother, but part of the DNA is… well, not a mammal," the skunk holding the tablet said.

"Huh… who do you have as the mother?" Nick asked.

"Heather Bandicta," the skunk replied. James' eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"No way… we have to tell Tanya."


	12. Fiat Iustitia

**A/N: The second to last chapter! This story took a while to finish, but finished it will be, and soon! I just hope this chapter isn't terrible XD**

**Big thanks goes out to Rynadine for doing some "sprints" with me to motivate me to write, and some more thanks to BorgBorger and Dakzoo for beta reading!**

**Anyways, _Enjoy!_**

* * *

He walked, begrudgingly, alongside the river of sewage, holding his head as high as his arched back would allow. He was tired of the stench, of the long walks in the dark, but he would soon be the king of this world, he was sure of it. He, too, had the premonitions of the downfall, but he was the righteous one, the one to cast out all those who did not accept him as their messiah. He saw the future and it was good.

The disgruntled, disfigured rat stopped at the sound of a distant voice. He looked and listened as shadows danced in the distance, a mammal shouting commands from beyond the back entrance of his horror show. _Those bastards… they can't stop me… I need another sacrifice,_ he thought. He wouldn't be able to take on an army of police officers. It was only a matter of time before someone caught on and he had a backup plan. He turned around and headed back home.

…

There wasn't enough time now. She had gotten Tamela, Yax, and the Oryx-Antlersons but if this lead was good they would be after this mammal and she wasn't sure they'd be ready. Tanya gripped the steering wheel hard with her good paw, but drove cautiously, trying to keep her thoughts on the road. It was a grueling quarter-hour before she made it to the headquarters, her mind trying to race the entire time but her conscious trying to keep it in its place. She could feel her stomach tensing as she flashed her badge for the doe behind the security desk.

She opened the door to the offices and made her way to Agouti's cubicle, the tiny thing buried between other relatively massive cubicles. She looked at him with a face that could only be described as paralyzed.

"Woah, Tanya, what's wrong? What happened to your arm?"

"I fell and broke it, as for what's wrong, I'm nervous but I'll tell you more in the car. Do you have your visor?" She asked. It was a pair of sunglasses that could record and transmit video, useful for agents who couldn't fit where he could.

"Right here," he said, picking up an eyeglass case from his desk.

"Great, can I pick you up? We need to hurry."

"Sure."

The snow leopard scooped up the small mammal and placed him in her arm sling. She headed for the front doors; she had parked on the street. The walk outside had her heart racing, she had no idea how the mouse would react to the case profile. She opened the door and sat down, closing it before grabbing the mouse and putting him on the dashboard.

"So, what's goin on?"

"We have a case where a telekinetic is killing mammals and using their blood to draw frescoes on walls. There's a risk that his use of telekinesis is ripping apart the barriers between us and parts of the spirit world. If we don't stop him, it seems like we're literally going to have hell on earth," she said.

"Holy fuck…" the mouse said. _No wonder she's nervous, _he thought.

"Yes. Are you still up for this?"

"Well yeah, of course, but… well, shit!"

"Yeah, it's pretty bad. Did you find the house?" Tanya asked him.

"Oh, yeah… yeah, I did, there's only one forty-two seventy-two in Little Rodentia, it's owned by-" he started, cut off by Tanya's phone ringing. She pulled it out to find it was James.

"Hello?" She said.

_"Tanya, we found something, we got DNA."_

"Great! Who is it?"

_"That's the problem, they aren't in the database, and they're only ninety percent rat. Ten percent is something else. We have an eighty-seven percent match to someone you'll know though: Heather Bandicta."_

"No way… that means… he's an alien hybrid?" Tanya said, startling the small agent in front of her. She would explain when she hung up.

_"That's what it seems like, it would explain the abilities and DNA. Do you want the Bandicta's address?"_

"I already have an address that Clare saw in a vision but I guess the more the merrier."

_"Ok, its forty-two seventy-two civet lane."_

"That's the address Clare saw… get Judy and Nick, I want you guys under the house in case there's a tunnel to the sewer inside. I'll get Clare," Tanya said.

_"Ok. I'll see if the civil engineer can get us below there… I guess I'll see you later. Stay safe,"_ James said.

"You too," Tanya replied, hanging up and sighing.

"So this guy's a…" the mouse started, not sure he had heard right.

"Yes, the mammal we're looking for is, it seems, an alien-mammal hybrid. We'll have to compare the DNA to some previous DNA samples to determine the alien race but I've got a hunch I know who it is," Tanya said.

"Wow… wait, how do you know he's alien and not, I don't know, an army experiment with lizards or something?"

"Because the Bandicta case is famous. Eighteen years ago, Heather Bandicta was traveling out of Zootopia with her husband in the dead region northeast of the city, the wet zone, when she was abducted. Her husband was put in jail as a suspect for her murder and he spent twelve days there awaiting trial before Heather was found on the side of a road in Bunnyburrow. Eighteen years ago is just enough time for an impregnated Heather to birth and raise a child, and given that he matches her DNA and some isn't mammalian, my bet is that he is the product of alien experimentation on Heather Bandicta,"

"Wow… well, we better get to this house I guess. Should we wait until they're in position below it?"

"Yeah, let's get to my house first to pick up my da- Clare, she'll be able to help... a little… hopefully."

…

James had the emergency lights on and was flying down the road, Nick holding firmly onto his seat as he sat next to the deer. It wasn't every day that they used their lights and siren, but today was a day, if any, to warrant them. They had to be at the hospital Judy was in yesterday and underground last week.

"Call Judy, tell her we're on the way," James said. Nick took out his phone and hit the rabbit's contact. She picked up after a few rings.

_"I was about to call, I'm leaving the hospital, Taylor didn't have much info. What are you up to?"_ She said.

"We're on our… way to you," Nick said, grunting as James turned.

_"Are you ok?"_

"Yeah, we're in a hurry, we found DNA and it gave us an address that matches something Clare saw apparently," Nick said.

_"Awesome! What's the plan?" _

"You, James, and I are gonna be underground while Tanya has a mouse agent search the house."

_"Ok, how long 'till you're here?"_

"We're here," he said, hanging up as the car screeched to a stop in front of the rabbit on the sidewalk. She was startled but immediately went up and opened the passenger side door, sliding under the seatbelt next to Nick and closing the door. "Interesting choice of seating Carrots."

"I didn't want to waste time opening the back door," she said, making sure the seatbelt was around her too. The car was massive for them, so they both fit comfortably, but they were pressed against each other as the car weaved through the streets.

"Call the phone number I'm about to give you, it's a civil engineer, Larry Regnab. We need him to get us under the house." James said. Judy took out her phone and waited. "Three-six-one Nine-four-two seven-three-eight-zero," he said. Judy dialed it and hit the call button, putting the phone to her ear. Seconds later a mammal picked up.

_"Hello?"_ the male voice said.

"Hi, this is Agent Hopps with the A3I, is this Larry Regnab?"

_"Yes… I see you guys need more help."_

"Yeah… James, what's the address?"

"Seventy-two Forty-two Civet Lane," James said.

"Can you get us in the sewer under seventy-two forty-two Civet Lane? Like, directions?" Judy asked.

_"Uh, yeah… let me look up that address," _he said. The phone transmitted a few clicking sounds from a busy keyboard and the grey fox spoke again. _"Ok, I have an access point for you, it's just outside the gate to L.R."_

"Ok, James we need to be just outside the entrance to Little Rodentia," Judy said. They were only a block away, but at their speed, they were there only moments later. James quickly parked the car on the sidewalk, stepping out with the other two. They found the mammalhole cover and James lifted it off of its seat in the street. Below it was a set of bars locked up by a massive padlock.

"We've got a problem, Larry!" James yelled, loud enough for the fox to hear over the phone.

_"That one is locked isn't it…"_

"Looks like it," Judy said.

"I'm gonna shoot it," James said. Tanya's car then pulled up in front of the group, Clare in the passenger seat. He pulled his gun and Tanya's eyes bulged out of her head. She opened her car door and stumbled out.

"James what the fuck?!" She yelled

"We gotta get down here and there's a lock in the way!" He said, pointing the gun into the sewer.

"Oh Jesus… just do it, I guess," the snow leopard said, using her one good paw to cover an ear. If there wasn't enough attention drawn to the group of mammals in suits already, the volley of shots ringing out was sure to bring it. The lock was destroyed and James lifted the bars out of the way, the three climbing down. Tanya went back to the car and looked to Agent Agouti for what to do next.

"I can get a head start if you throw me in," he said.

"What?"

"Yeah, you can throw me, I'm small I won't get hurt," he said. _Screw it_, Tanya thought, figuring she might as well do whatever they could to make this happen faster. The mouse put on his sunglasses and the cat picked him up, carrying him to the gate.

"Where?" She asked. He pointed slightly to the left.

"Aim for just past the tram," he said.

"Are you sure about this?" She asked.

"Yeah I'll be fine," he said.

"Here goes nothing," she said. She wound up and threw the mouse, cringing as she watched him fly. She lost track of him behind a building and hoped to god he hadn't gotten impaled on a light post. Her phone then buzzed, and she took it out to see a live video feed from his visor. "Hell yeah!" She said. She ran back to the car with Clare and sat down, closing the door.

"So what did you need me for?" Clare asked.

"You might be able to predict his next moves… plus, moral support," Tanya replied. "Can you hear me Agouti?"

_"Loud and clear. What should I ask when I get there? And what should I do?"_

"Tell them you are there to check on their son. You'll know when you see him, apparently he's disfigured. Try to catch him off guard and put a bullet in his head," Tanya said, watching as the mouse walked down the street.

_"So don't fuck around," _the mouse said.

"Indeed," Tanya confirmed, watching from her phone as the mouse looked at a street sign and a house address.

_"Good throw, I'm only a block away."_

…

"Where to?" Judy asked her phone, James and Nick awaiting directions from the rabbit.

"_Do you see a number on the wall?" _The engineer asked. She spotted a number on the opposite wall.

"Yes. Two-zero-three-six."

_"Ok, walk to the left until you see two-zero-four-zero and turn left," _he said. She started moving and the two followed behind, Nick with his phone out as a flashlight, James using his gun's light. They reached the number and found themselves in front of a four-way intersection.

"You said turn left? Then what?" Judy asked.

_"Yeah, left and walk until you see two-three-four-zero, then you should be directly under the house,"_ Larry said. She did as she was told and they found themselves in front of the number in less than a minute. They quickly discovered a small hole in the ceiling.

"You guys seeing that?" James asked. The other two gave a 'yes.'

"Ok, we're in position, thanks for the help," Judy said.

_"No problem, good luck!" _Larry said before Judy hung up. She then pulled her gun and aimed it at the hole along with Nick and James.

"What now?" Judy asked.

"Either we wait, or we call Tanya for the sitrep," James said.

"Let's just wait, stay quiet," Nick offered. The other two nodded, and they sat in the sewer, guns pointed at a hole in the ceiling.

…

Agent Agouti stood in front of the pastel blue house, checking it out before heading up to the door and ringing the bell. Tense moments passed as he waited, hearing shuffling inside, not sure what was going to meet him when it opened. Footsteps inside the house cued him that someone was coming and moments later the door opened to reveal a middle-aged female rat.

"Oh… hello," she said, slightly stunned.

"Hi, I'm Agent Agouti with the Agency of Investigation and Internal Intelligence, I'm here because we want to check on your son, he's undocumented and we just want to be sure he is doing ok," the mouse lied.

"Oh… come in," She said. He stepped through the doorway and she closed it behind him. The house was in nice shape, well cleaned and up to date with its decorations. "I have to admit something, Agent Agouti," she said.

"Sure, what would you like me to know?" He asked the slightly larger mammal.

"My son, he's… he's very deformed, and he has some mental difficulties, but I assure you we treat him the best we can… It's… I'm worried about the circumstances of why you're here though," she said.

"Well, what **has** you concerned?" He asked, to which she sighed. He hoped to god they had the right guy, he didn't want to kill someone's disabled child, this rat was being very polite and formal.

"Take a seat and I'll tell you," she said, inviting him onto the couch. Tanya watched it all unfold and was growing slightly more nervous by the moment.

"_Make sure this isn't a trap Agouti,"_ she said through his visor.

"I think ill be alright standing here," he said to the rat.

"Oh… well, here goes… the circumstances of his… conception… were very unusual, and I know you won't believe me so I'll just say it: I believe he was conceived as a result of alien experimentation on me when I was abducted," she said, dead serious. He smiled.

"Don't worry, the A3I is well aware, but we still…" He started, not sure he could finish saying 'need to make sure he's ok' since his plans were, in fact, the opposite. He shook his head, dropping his smile. "I'm sorry ma'am, I have bad news for you; your son has been committing murders and we need to arrest him immediately," he said, breaking his cover. Tanya cursed as she watched but she agreed with what he did.

"Oh my… you, you can't be serious?"

"I'm sorry ma'am, our evidence puts him very strongly as the culprit. We worry that he will resist arrest, so if you could talk with him and get him to agree to arrest that would be a great help. It could save his life," the mouse said. Heather covered her mouth as a tear rolled down her cheek.

"I can't believe this…" she said.

"I'm sorry ma'am. Where is your son now?" He asked.

"He, he should be in the basement… I'll go get him," She said quietly. She walked to a door and opened it, calling down the stairs to her son.

"Robby? Rob, could you come upstairs? We need to talk," She said. There was no response. "Robby?" She asked, starting to descend the stairs. She then screamed, the shriek cut off into a gurgle, and Agent Agouti ran to the staircase, drawing his gun immediately. He rounded the doorway to find Heather being dragged down the stairs by an invisible force, holding her neck as she writhed. He started moving down the stairs, his gun drawn, but soon felt the same pressure around his own neck. He kept the gun raised but he couldn't breathe, and soon enough the gun was ripped from his paws.

"You can't stop me," a quiet voice said.

…

Tanya watched as the special agent was drawn into the basement by the invisible force, the mouse unconscious. She covered her mouth with her paw and shook herself out of the shock, immediately calling Judy.

"Judy, he's in the house, Agouti is in trouble, he got… he's going for the sewer!" She nearly shouted at the phone. She watched as the deformed rat uncovered a hole in the floor. He immediately recognized the light from flashlights, closed his eyes, and seconds later a chorus of gasps and coughs could be heard from the hole, the rat choking Tanya's friends as she watched.

"No, no! Fuck!" She shouted. She signaled for Clare to get in the driver's seat and left the car, getting in on the other side. She switched her view on the phone to a GPS map with Agouti's marker showing his location underground. She was ready to tell Clare where to go.

"Are they dead?" Clare asked, terrified.

"No, but they will be if we don't get to them soon," Tanya said. She watched as the blip moved unnervingly fast through the network under the streets. Tanya pushed a button on the dashboard and the emergency lights and sirens went on. "Turn around and go straight!" She said. Clare put the car in drive and whipped it around, planting her paw on the gas pedal and racing down the road. Tanya watched the blip as it went in a strangely straight line, and they were soon out of downtown. The blip stopped.

"Stop!" She shouted. Clare slammed on the breaks and Tanya watched as the blip moved under the dry cleaner to their left. She got out of the car and suddenly the ground shook, Clare stumbling as she got out of the car on the other side. Tanya drew her gun and started moving towards the laundromat but stumbled as the ground erupted beneath them, a gas main breaking and fire rising from the cracks. Tanya fell to the sidewalk and held on while the street behind her collapsed into the sewer. Clare fell backward onto the car as it slammed into the ground and she hit the hood.

It felt like her stomach had exploded, she expected to look down and see her guts everywhere but her head lifted to reveal an intact body. The pain was overwhelming and she knew the feeling all too well, she had felt it before; her back was broken, she was sure of it.

…

Judy's eyes suddenly opened at the sound of earth and concrete breaking and collapsing, a wave of sewage washing over her and her comrades. The rat in front of her was looking through a curtain of fire to a snow leopard in a suit above ground. Tanya was grabbing at her neck, a gun in one of her paws, and Judy knew what she had to do. She looked at the rat and focused on tearing his soul out of his body.

She didn't know how she would do it, but good god she was going to try. She watched as the rat turned towards her, Tanya releasing the grasp of her throat in the background. Judy focused with all her might on killing the rat and watched as his face started to wince in pain. Tanya then drew her gun again and quickly shot the deformed thing. He splattered all over the sewer.


	13. Mundus Pereat

**A/N: Geez****, this is like the third time I've written this authors note, I keep forgetting to save it in documents! This is the final chapter/epilogue to the story. Hopefully it answers some questions, hopefully it raises some, and I hope you all like it. This was my longest story so far! It also got quite a bit of attention, so thank you all for the reviews, for the follows and faves, and thank you for reading!**

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

It was getting boring to watch the news. Sitting in a hospital bed was not nearly as relaxing as sitting in a regular bed and her brace didn't help with that either. She just wanted to be drugged up and fall asleep until she was ready to leave, especially after the news she had gotten today. A familiar story then appeared on screen, the scene of the road from yesterday showing up in a small window next to the moose.

_"In recent news, the road collapse in Savannah Central yesterday was a foiled terrorist attack, according to the A3I," _Peter Moosebridge started. _"They say the suspect is dead and one mammal is injured, however, they did not confirm whether the injury was A3I or ZPD. Two ZPD officers and four A3I agents were present on scene, as well as multiple civilians," _he finished. Fabienne then started speaking.

_"Reports of a gas main being broken are confirmed, and fire was seen briefly on scene before the connection was cut off by the automatic gas delivery system. Eyewitnesses report seeing a police vehicle stopping abruptly in the street before the ground collapsed beneath it…"_ the snow leopard continued. Another snow leopard then walked into the room and Clare turned off the television.

"Hey, how you feelin'?" Tanya asked the wolf.

"Not bad, still hurts but I guess that's to be expected," Clare said. Tanya frowned.

"Aw, poor baby… have you heard anything about the nerves?" Tanya asked, sitting down at the end of the bed.

"Yeah… they say… they think I'll make a recovery but it'll take months, maybe a year before I can walk normally," Clare said. A tear immediately formed in Tanya's eye.

"Oh my god, this is all my fault!" The cat cried, weeping. Clare didn't know what to say. She was wrong, of course, but how to tell her that and convince her was going to be hard.

"It's ok Tanya… it's not your fault," she said. She felt useless, laying in the same position as Tanya wept at the end of the bed.

"Yes it is, I shouldn't have had you on the case."

"No… you needed me on the case from the moment we went into that sewer. Now, stop sitting at the end of the bed and get closer so I can console you!" She said. Tanya laughed lightly and scooted closer. "Tanya," Clare said, barely able to touch the cat from where she was.

"I don't wanna, like, get too close and hurt you more," Tanya said through her tears.

"You can lay down next to me, come on, come here," Clare said. Tanya did as she was asked and cuddled up against Clare's side, her head on the wolf's shoulder. Her sling'd arm was facing the ceiling and it left her with little to do but cry on Clare. "It's ok Tanya. I'm going to be ok. If I weren't in the car with you, we wouldn't have caught him, you needed me there."

"I guess," Tanya said. Clare pet her head while they lay together. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Tanya spoke again. "I brought you something, I don't know if you want it but its… I guess an offer," she said.

"Sure, what is it?" Clare asked. Tanya rolled over and took a folder out of her arm sling, handing it to the wolf. She opened it to reveal adoption documentation.

"I thought it might be nice to have some official family again…" Tanya said. Clare immediately smiled, a tear rolling down her cheek.

"Dammit, Tanya now you're making _me _cry!" She joked, wrapping her arms around Tanya again. Tanya smiled and could feel the tears welling in her own eyes.

"So I'm guessing that's a yes?" She asked.

"What do you think," Clare said through sobs. They embraced again, crying tears of joy. But, as happy as she was now, Tanya couldn't help but feel guilty for what happened to Clare.

…

"Is your neck sore?" Judy asked, rubbing her throat.

"Yeah, just a little," Nick replied, taking a sip of his coffee. They sat, hovering over their pastries and coffee, looking outside at the bright, sunny day from inside the cafe.

"I can't believe we made it out of there, we all did," Judy said.

"Tanya is one hell of a shot, that's for sure," Nick said. Hitting a small rat through a blanket of fire from thirty feet away without hitting any of her comrades was no small feat.

Silence ensued, permeating their connection.

"Have you heard from Kate at all?" Nick asked after a short while.

"No," Judy said quietly. She took a sip from her coffee and Nick did the same, the two looking out the window. "It's a good day for parking duty," Judy said, trying to continue the conversation. Nick hummed and nodded. Try as they might, there was nothing to talk about but the adventure they had just returned from. "Its a shame the way Heather talked about him…" Judy said.

"Yeah. Locking him in the house all day… what a terrible way to live."

"Imagine how his life could have been different."

"Yeah, maybe he could have gone to school and been bullied himself rather than just reading about the bullying on social media," Nick joked. It was a morbid thought.

"It's a shame… the ones responsible for him should be brought to justice," Judy said.

"He was just a kit, it never should have happened," Nick said.

"A ritten," Judy corrected.

"A what?" Nick asked.

"A ritten, it's what they call young rats, like a rat-kitten, a ritten."

"Huh."

…

Two weeks later, the Vecher residence.

…

She quietly slipped out of bed, checking the time. _One-o-three__ AM._ It was time for Clare to take more ibuprofen, but Tanya had no plans to give her ibuprofen. She no longer had to wear a sling on her arm and planned to take full advantage of the appendage. The snow leopard took two of her prescription sleeping pills and got a glass of water, walking into Clare's room. She sat on the bed and gently tapped on the wolf's shoulder until she woke up. Clare already knew the routine, they didn't speak to each other, the canine just quietly took the pills and took a sip of water, rolling over again and trying to fall asleep.

Tanya went downstairs and brewed herself some coffee, preparing herself for the journey ahead. After fifteen minutes of arguing with herself she returned to her room, going to her dresser and getting a lockbox out of her underwear drawer. She entered the code and opened it, digging past its jewelry and documents to find a slender, black shard. She put it in the pocket of her night pajamas and returned to Clare's room to make sure she was asleep. After some brief tests to ensure she wouldn't wake up, the cat pulled the covers and sheets off of the wolf and lifted her out of bed, the powerful leopard then carrying her down the stairs and out to the garage.

She gently, carefully opened the car door and laid the wolf down in the back seat, wrapping her in the seatbelts and buckling her in. She opened the front door and got in, putting the key in the ignition and starting the car. The door to the garage opened and the car pulled out, the nervous leopard looking every which way, trying to ensure nobody could see the back seat. The roads were quiet, empty almost. She drove further away from downtown, away from the city, into the large mudflats. It was called the wet zone, as it was almost constantly covered in stormcloud and rain.

It was going to be a long and difficult drive but Tanya was willing to do anything for her stepdaughter. Every stoplight was a place to hit the breaks too hard, a place for a passerby to see the unconscious mammal in her back seat. Every speed trap had her on edge, and every ZPD vehicle made her heart pound. Soon, though, she was outside of the city, in the dark, desolate wasteland of the wet zone. She drove out until she couldn't see the lights anymore and stopped the car.

The rain was pouring and thunder shook the windows of the car. She took the shard out of her pocket and gripped it firmly. It grew warm as it transmitted its impossible signal to whoever would be listening. She opened the door and stepped out into the cold rain, opening the back door to retrieve her wolf. She carried her out of the car, taking a few steps into the mud and waiting. The ground started to vibrate lightly and the sky seemed to do the same, the rain falling only periodically in waves.

The stars became clearer.

The rain stopped and a bright blue light engulfed the cat and the wolf.

…

The next morning

…

Her eyes slowly opened as she realized she was conscious. The wolf immediately reached for her phone on her nightstand, checking the time. It was two-thirty in the afternoon, way past her usual wake up time. She wondered where Tanya was.

"Hey, Ta- Mom?" She asked the whole house, hoping her shout could be heard downstairs. It was weird to call Tanya her mother but it felt good.

"Oh! You're awake!" Tanya said from the hallway, walking over to her doorway.

"Why is it so late?" She asked. It was an odd question.

"Well I figured you were resting so I wasn't going to bother you, you know, healing and all," Tanya said. She took a few steps into Clare's room and sat on the bed. There was no noise with her paw steps, no clinking of the brace Tanya had made.

"You took off your thing?' Clare asked.

"My what?"

"Your leg thing."

"Oh, yeah, it felt good so I figured I didn't need it anymore," Tanya lied. Clare then tried to sit up, going slowly so as to not hurt her back.

But there was no pain.

She wiggled around a little, feeling out her back. It was totally normal. She looked at Tanya with confusion.

"It doesn't hurt at all today…" she said. She touched her stomach and could feel her paw clearly. She reached further down and touched her thighs and could still feel everything. She threw the blankets off of herself and watched as she wiggled her toes, smiling. "My god! It's like I'm back to normal!" She said. Tanya smiled.

"Wow!" She said, feigning surprise. Clare smiled and gasped as she stood up out of bed and took a few steps. It was tough after not having walked for two weeks but she could do it. She turned back to Tanya and gave her a hug.

"It's a fuckin miracle," she said, feeling the snow leopard rub her back.

"This is great," Tanya said, but there was something off about her voice. She mentally cursed, knowing she had broken her act accidentally.

"What's wrong?" Clare asked, breaking the hug to look at Tanya. Tanya sighed.

"I… You woke up late today because last night I gave you sleeping pills, not ibuprofen. I… I took us to a place where they could fix our injuries and I'm not saying any more," she said, slightly guilty.

"Wha- where?" Clare asked.

"I'm not saying any more Clare."

"Was it like a military hospital? What-"

"Clare, I'm never, ever going to tell you, I'm sorry. Maybe in the far future but right now I can't, ok? I'm sorry," Tanya said, clearly upset. Clare's ears went down.

"O… okay," she said. Tanya hugged her again.

"I just… I felt guilty that you couldn't walk, I'm sorry."

"It's ok… thank you... I just wish you had told me instead of drugging me," Clare said.

"I wish I could have."

…

_Impares nascimur, pares morimur, ergo iustitiam quaerimus, rem omni auro Cariorem cur pulvis sumus et in pulverem reverterimus._

_Born unequeal, we die all the same, and so justice we seek; it is dearer than all gold, for we are all dust and to dust we all shall return._


End file.
